Friday Rain
by Listelia
Summary: It started raining. Greg Lestrade stopped, his hands in his pockets, and looked up. It was raining the day the consulting detective had found the young doctor curled up on the paved ground in that narrow street. It was raining the day Mary had showed up on the doorstep of 221b Baker Street. It was always raining when something was about to happen.
1. I : Raindrop

It was that time of the year when rain fell like a surprise, a curtain of water in a wave of sun, suddenly, crackling on the street. People ran to take shelter, a bag or a newspaper in protection over their heads.

The young woman watched the shining drops, bright beads on the edge of the phone booth, and she wanted to laugh.

_Everything had begun under a shower of light like this one._

_And everything had seemed to end under one also._

The rattling on the glass stopped, and a rainbow unfurled over the building, in front of her.

She smiled, held out her hand to check it did not rain any more.

- "I'm coming, Sherlock", she whispered.

The sun played in the puddles and in the young woman's amber hair.

_It had not ended there._

_Oh, no, not at all._

On the contrary, everything had begun after this end.


	2. The Detective

Noodles with mushrooms were perfect.

Sticky, black, perfumed. Not too much soaked, just like noodles should always be.

They were never this good at the restaurant.

- "To Her Majesty", Greg Lestrade chuckled, before mouthing a handful of noodles. "Huuuum, It'ch good ... a-a-a-ah, hot!"

The detective sitting on the driver's seat shot him a glance.

- "D'd you say somethin', sir?"

The policeman shook his head, still chewing. He swallowed and wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. His moon face lit up with a smile that went up to the gray messy hair above his ears. He smoothed his fringe.

- "I wasn't talking to you", he answered.

On the other side of the windshield, the dead end they were watching was still empty.

- "The rat won't come out his hole any soon", said the other detective, yawning. "He probably guessed we're in hideout. Ah, this is getting annoying…"

Lestrade was bothered by a tiny bit of noodle. He slid his thumb nail between his teeth.

- "Patience, buddy. Patience…" he muttered.

His small eyes quickly browsed the street. He snorted, amused.

- "Start the engine", he ordered.

The man raised a skeptical eyebrow.

The shower rain passed on the dead end in a few minutes, drenching the ad posters and the cardboards left next to the trash cans, leaving only twinkling drops on the grey steel of the electric poles.

- "Ah, it's this period of the year again", said the detective, leaning over to look at the sky through the window. "Are you goin' to take some days off, lieutenant? Like always, to go see the family?"

The other man was still staring at the street.

- "What family?" He broke in, blowing through his nostril.

His smile had gotten bigger. His team-mate gave up digging the issue and switched on the engine.

A few minutes later, the suspect stuck his head out in the dead end.


	3. The Doctor

Both were a bit miffed.

- "Do you think they're really crazy about him?" whispered the first one, leaning in his chair.

- "He could at least share the fun with others! We're almost the same age", whispered the second one, hiding behind a file.

The medical examiner who was responsible for their training gave him a slap on the nape of the neck as he passed behind.

- "Don't you brats have anything else to do? These young people, _really_ ! They have no idea what _working_ means!"

- "Mercy, you're always bullying us!" they yelped. "Why aren't you never taking it out on Dr Watson?"

The man pulled a face. He rolled his shoulders in his white coat, then crouched down between both chairs.

- "Dr. Watson is your problem, eh… Am I right?"

Both interns shook their head very seriously.

- "He's hardly older than us, and still you treat him with the same respect you pay to a veteran", complained the first one, chewing on his pen.

- "He's clumsy and out of fashion" pouted the second one. "And have you seen his ring? It's - shameless!"

- "And not hygienic! We're fiddling with dead bodies, for Heaven's sake!"

The coroner glanced upwards.

- "You guys are so far from being there yet… John Watson might not be a genius with new technologies, but on the ground, he's an ace. He worked three years with Sherlock Holmes. When you will have accumulated that much time with a legend, you'll get more respect."

There was a moment of offended thinking.

Both interns had no idea what or who the doctor spoke of, actually.

- "But his naive face and this _ring_, you have to reckon this is not what an effective doctor should look like! He's all _look at me, I'm a mysterious fellow_", belched the first one.

The professor slapped him again.

- "If you intend of working in this field, learn the names of famous investigators before anything!"

The other intern risked an eye beyond the wall of the cubicle and stirred restlessly.

- Shshshsh!

- _Excuse me, professor_, Do you have two minutes to speak about the woman with red heels?

John Watson was coming, smiling.

_Oh yes, you had all the reasons of the world to hate him when you were only a intern freshly bumped out of school._

The doctor wore his white coat like a scarecrow, his haircut was far from the lastest fashion and his gentle smile was just too - infuriating.

The coroner stood up, dusting his knees.

- "Intuition?"

- "Proof when you look at it from another angle", the young man agreed. He gave a scrap of paper to his senior. "I think it's worth giving it a look."

The man nodded.

- "Well done."

He gave a friendly pat onto John's shoulder, passing next to him, then decided otherwise and turned around.

- "While I give my phone call, can you explain to these guys why you're wearing jewelry ?"

John Watson stiffened, his cheeks reddening.

- "_Professor_!"

The doctor turned on his heels with a chuckle.

- "Yeah, tell us, _doctor_."

Both interns looked half cocky – half curious. The young man let out a sigh, putting on one of the cute pouts that made the women of the forensic department weak in the knees. He played with the big silver ring on his forefinger, looking undecided.

- "Sorry, guys !" he suddenly said, before escaping with long strides.

- "Heeeeeeyyyy!"

The two sat back, grumbling. They jumped when a sneer broke behind them.

The old lab who was picking at his nails, his feet on his desk, gave them a wink.

- "John Watson is far from being a swank like you think", he mocked, playing with the accessories of his pocketknife. "He didn't gain the respect of his seniors gossiping like you two."

A sarcastic chuckle swished under his mustache.

- "A beautiful ring, right? I don't wish you one of the same! Speaking of a ring, yekyekyek. _Cut_. The finger of the littl' doc. _Snap_! Kidnapped during his last case with Sherlock Holmes."

Another snigger that made their hair stand on their neck, and the creepy rattling of the mini-scissors.

- "_Nine Fingers_ _Watson_, who nailed down the investigation while he was bleeding like a sheep on a hook. You should read a bit, kids."

Both interns shivered.

- "See you later!" trumpeted with his usual good mood Dr. Watson, sticking his head a second in the door frame of the office.

The secretary replied with a smile and the lab gave him a military salvation .

The interns exchanged a look after his departure, then, in a common movement, dived back with renewed energy in the folders they were given to study.

Working with the shy doctor suddenly looked very attractive.


	4. Beauty and the Beast

The students had become used to it.

Often, at the end of the day, when the sun crept, orange, under the thick curtains of the lecture hall, the door opened quietly behind them. The young woman slipped to the back row and attended the last lesson, an enigmatic smile on her peaceful face.

After some time, they had notice Sherlock Holmes became gentler when she was there. His sarcastic expression dimmed down, he did not insist as sharply on the horrible pictures he used as support for the study. The harsh flow of his words slowed a bit.

After the class, he tidied up his files on the writing desk, without looking up. She came down the aisle with slow steps, her shawl floating on her shoulders, light on the slender heels of her boots.

She smiled like only an angel could, until he eventually raised his chin.

He cleared his throat, tilted his head.

His pale blue eyes greeted her politely under the black curls.

- "Hello", he mumbled.

- "Hello", she answered softly.

Then he went up the stairs with her, the files under his arm, his long black jacket brushing against the sleeve of the young woman.

They walked to the campus exit, sometimes chatting without haste, about the class or the people she had seen at the library during the day. She sat in the cab beside him.

It was at this moment, that something that looked like a smile brushed his lips.

She watched his sharp profile in the reflection of the window and her eyes sparkled.

The road scrolled in front of them, the same road every day, unwound with the quiet rhythm of the music in the radio set.

When she left the taxi, he answered with a quite nod to the waving of her hand, and waited for the light to fill the window behind the curtain of her house.

Then the taxi went off and he looked with a sigh at the empty seat beside him.

The next day, everything happened the same again.

The students decided of a code name for them after watching the story for a few weeks.

_It takes years for a nightmare to fade away and __for us to begin believing, one step after another, that it is possible to dream again._

Mary Hudson remembered perfectly the day of the second sunny rain shower, when Sherlock Holmes had decided to quit his job as a consulting detective.

John Watson waved with his bandaged arm, a big smile on his face, standing next to his red car pearled with rain. Lieutenant Greg Lestrade, hands on his hips, laughed silently in the bus shelter dotted with transparent drops.

In front of the door, the genius had brought a hand to his face, as to wipe it with an absent-minded gesture.

But Mary Hudson had not been fooled.

_Sherlock Holmes was crying._

So for once, she had thanked the rain which had sent her to the 221b Baker Street door.

She had smiled, a little dazzled by the rainbow that already drilled through he clouds.

And made her choice.

She would never leave him alone.

He had only given a not really surprised shrug, the first time he had met her in the corridors of the academy, a month later. Had begun to walk beside her, tuning his long feline steps on the discreet trotting of the young woman's steps.

Had offered to take her home that night.

She had accepted with a smile. Had invited herself in the taxi every other day that followed.

And the years.

He had found back almost with relief the flower perfume floating near him when the white strips spun off along the road. The bright little crept into his heart into the oppressing silence of his world.

Slowly, very slowly, something that did not ache any more nor looked bitter had settled down on the face of the man who no longer knew how to smile.

Something that looked like peace.

One evening, as usual, they were sitting on the bench outside the campus, but he did not wave for the taxi.

He did not turn to her. Keeping his eyes on the road, he simply reached out and slid his fingers around the young woman's.

She said nothing but, quietly, her head settled, light, on his shoulder.

Maybe an hour had passed by, just like that, silently.

Mary knew a lot of time would be needed.

She was willing to wait another seven other years if needed, for Sherlock's broken heart, locked into his prison of guilt and hatred, to accept her opening the door and sitting down in the darkness with him. For a fragile light to brighten his world of suffering and allow her to help him rebuild his happiness.

A year had passed. And another after that.

Then Sherlock suggested one evening they go eat somewhere else then the academy cafeteria. He liked sushis, she found out.

Another day, he surprised her by coming to wait for her in the library. He sat down on a chair in a corner and read for an hour an encyclopedia of crime he had not recommended his students, his long legs crossed next to the small table on which she had left a tea cup.

She told Greg Lestrade about it when he appeared on her doorstep at the end of the season, like he always did. The man grumbled happily, rectified his jacket with a satisfied expression. He called her " good girl " and went away speaking for himself.

He returned from his afternoon with Holmes looking even more delighted and took the coach back to London never stopping his whistling.

She laughed when she talked to John Watson on the phone, that Thursday. The young man teased her and made all sorts of crazy comments, while listening: "It's your call, Hudson, go!"

She loved these two men like true brothers and she felt cherished by them. Moving away or the dismissal of their team, had not even one minute removed the feeling she belonged to a family. Her family.

Winter ended and spring came back.

And one night, on her way back home, she did not get out of the taxi in front her house.

Sherlock opened the door of his apartment almost shyly. In the dim light of the entrance, she read the question in his eyes and just pressed his hand.

He slowly undid the long scarf she wore, then leaned in the shadows.

He hesitated.

She smiled. Her eyes were bright, full of love.

- "Come", she whispered.

Then the sociopath, the man who had lived like a wounded wild beast, hidden for years, finished the movement he had begun.

He closed his eyes and kissed the lips of the woman who had tamed him.

She had the taste of a flower.

* * *

_Next chapter preview : **Rainbow**_

* * *

Moon Light

An old detective's intuition

Miracle


	5. II : Rainbow

They didn't get married.

They would probably never get married. Mary Hudson knew the trauma would remain for ever. When Sherlock Holmes was asleep, always came a moment when he began shivering in his sleep. His face contorted in agony and he mumbled, searching in his nightmare for the woman he loved, taken away by his invisible enemy. He stirred, cried, called, begged.

It was her name she heard - but she knew he relived again the horror of Room 101 and the death of Irene Adler.

She leaned over him, wrapped her arms around him and hugged him close to her heart, kissing his black curls, whispering she was here, that she would always be here. He was trembling, his forehead covered with sweat pressed against her breast, clinging onto her, trying not to lose his mind to this hell.

At night, the ex-consulting detective had the expression of a lost child, the same she had read on his face that terrible morning at the hotel.

No, they would not get married.

Nothing would bind her officially to the man who had spent more than ten years of his life looking for a murderer called F.


	6. Moon Light

Gradually, he learnt to smile even when no one watched.

He was still the same, feline and proud, walking in the corridors of the academy like a king. He had kept the habit of tilting his head aside when he was lost in thoughts or when he wanted to invite somebody to think. His gaze pierced to the core of his students and he still had the same strong voice, used to lead and command. Sometimes, an order instead of an invitation escaped him and she burst out laughing in front of his disappointment when he realized she would not just follow.

He didn't give her a ring - let alone a necklace - but he offered her a pair of earrings that looked like two drops, set in silver foil.

She put them on and he slid a lock of long amber hair behind her ear.

He nodded, looking quite pleased.

- Hum.

- You're supposed to say " you look gorgeous", or "it suits you", said Mary, trying not to laugh.

- Hum.

He still did not know how to talk in a normal way. He was talkative only while on a case, trying to explain how his mind had worked out the process.

She turned to the window of the lounge to admire the earrings. This was his apartment. They didn't live together, it was still too early. Maybe he would give it a try by the end of the year… She was hopeful. He was beginning to grow tired of forgetting his stuff at one or the other place.

The moon haloed the room with a pale glow, sparkling in a pale blue on the wooden floor, the young woman's milky skin, the transparent drops at her ears.

- It's beautiful… sighed Mary, searching for Sherlock's shadow in the reflection of the window.

He was by the bookcase, putting on a CD.

The music rose softly in the room.

Mary thought of a long time ago, of a big room filled with cardboards and with files, where she danced with a violin for her dance partner.

The man came back to her. His hands brushed against her hips, intertwined with her fingers. He embraced her and pulled her in the dance, slowly.

She closed her eyes.

- Thank you… she whispered.

She wanted the song to last all night long… all life long… for this feeling of serenity never to fade away.

Sherlock contemplated the smile of the woman he danced with, the way his long fingers used to touch death were interlaced with Mary's fingers, slender and delicate.

So much purity and sweetness… was it okay to accept it ? Was he allowed to this ? Was it all right to believe in it?

_" Why was my happiness taken from me?"_

_"Will it ever come back?"_

The question still had no answer.

But Sherlock began to understand there was an alternative to happiness.

Hope.


	7. An old detective's intuition

Greg Lestrade knew he was nowhere near Sherlock's analysis capacities, but he had always been very proud of his intuition and powers of observation.

That's why he was all the more shocked.

He was putting his beer on the table after a content sigh, when his eyes fell on Mary Hudson, standing on the terrace.

The young woman was laughing and listening to John Watson, who listed his troubles with the interns at the forensic university.

The kid had matured a lot. More than six years had passed since Lestrade had met the strange roommate the consulting detective had picked up on the street - on an impulse. He was no longer the skinny and clumsy teen, his cheeks flaming up because Sherlock was laughing of something he had said, the go-ahead type who couldn't think through before acting, the former soldier who panicked in front of an hypochondriac grandma but was never afraid to look at a corpse. Lestrade was proud to count him among his friends.

But in the company of the young woman - like when she was their landlady - John was all winks and cuteness, like a kid with his big sister .

- "Them two…" snorted the man with fondness.

He rubbed his nose, crunched on an appetizer and fumbled to get his glass, his eyes still on the terrace and the little woman bathed in sun and joy.

He had always had a soft spot for her. Like a niece you love you and spoil, whose progress you monitor with pride and who you protect fiercely.

He swallowed and massaged the pinch of his nose.

_Something was off._

He winced. Maybe he should get his sight checked. He pressed on his left eyelid, then released the pressure.

_No, the picture had not changed. _

He cleared his throat, raised his eyebrows to help clear his fogged brain and turned to look for the ex-consulting detective.

Sherlock Holmes chose this precise moment to sit on the stool next to him with a freshly opened bottle of beer.

- "Another glass, Lieutenant?" he suggested.

Greg chewed the inside of his mouth, then accepted the glass.

- It's what you see, said the former detective, as if he had guessed the thought that stirred under the tousled head of the cop.

Lestrade gave him a sharp look.

His eyes returned again on the terrace, to Mary, whose shawl had slid a little.

Under the light fabric of her summer dress, the shape of her belly was round and nice.

- "End of November", said Sherlock with the same quiet voice.

But the extremity of his ears was red and from the way the corners of his lips went up, Greg Lestrade got the clear idea he was a lot less neutral than he pretended.

- "You?" gasped the lieutenant. "Mary… since when… a _baby_ ?"

Apparently he had spoken louder than he wanted because the chat on the terrace broke off.

- "You didn't know? You're getting old!" exclaimed John, pretending to look stunned.

Mary said nothing, but she smiled shyly, nibbling on her lips, like a girl expecting the blessing of her father.

Greg's eyes locked with Sherlock's eyes and he deciphered a husband pride, the love of a man for a woman, the fear of a teenager in front of an adult's challenge, the past without illusions of a detective who had seen too much.

He heaved a sigh, put down his glass and gave a slap to Holmes' shoulder.

- "What do they usually say? _Congratulations_, isn't it?"

Sherlock relaxed and Mary sent him a silent look of thanks.

Behind the young woman, John had not noticed he took on a protective look when his eyes passed on Mary, behind the derisive smile he shot to the lieutenant.

- "Ahhh… life…" sighed Greg Lestrade.

He had a sip of beer and suddenly felt very old and very happy.


	8. Miracle

This was _Pacing up and down National Day_.

Pacing up and down waiting for a taxi. Pacing up and down before the desk lady stopped thinking he was an an old pervert and gave him directions to the rightful ward. Pacing up and down in front of the delivery room. Then pacing up and down at the end of the corridor while waiting for Sherlock, in order to capture him and prevent him from going where mary was.

The young woman, covered with sweat, had grabbed the policeman's sleeve.

- Don't let him come in, she had articulated with effort. "He shouldn't see this…"

Greg Lestrade had only managed to nod vigorously and had obeyed.

The gaze of a woman in labor could be a lot more impressive than the threat of a half-dozen mafia leaders.

In the end, only John had stayed in the delivery room, holding her hand and encouraging her with his distraught "Hang on, M-m-mary. You can do it !"

It would have been funny under any other circumstances.

But the officer wasn't at all in the mood to laugh.

He passed his handkerchief over his forehead dripping with sweat, then put the cloth back in the pocket of his suit, and began pacing up and down again.

_Anything can happen, isn't it ?_

- "Everything's fine, Greg", he muttered for himself. "Mary is strong. Our girl is stronger and cleverer than all of us together. She managed to tame the monster, didn't she…"

He broke off.

Sherlock had just appeared at the corner of the corridor. He was wearing his coat but had forgotten to take off the paper boots he had put on to examine a crime scene at the request of the Metropolitan Police. And for him to have agreed to actually _wear_ them was already a bad sign.

- "How's she doing?" he panted.

The detective wondered if he had run back all the way from London.

- "She's been in there for a while", he said, taking the young man by the arm and pulling him in the opposite direction of the delivery room. "We'll soon know if it's a littl' guy or a missy."

Holmes freed his arm.

- "I should be with her", he protested with a frantic look.

His eyes were round and terrified.

- "Not at all", said Lestrade, catching him up. "Mummy's in good hands, Daddy. You'd rather have a cuppa. I'm sure you ate nothing since this morning."

Sherlock slumped on a bench in the corridor. He ran a hand over his face, overwhelmed.

- "I shouldn't have left," he stuttered.

Greg discovered that the more the young man worried, the more himself found back his confidence.

- "Nonsense", he retorted. He gave the man a poke then sat down next to him. " Don't worry, Holmes. Everything will be fine."

- "Greg, if she… if I…"

Sherlock was so much at a lost it was almost cute.

Lestrade snorted cheerfully.

- "Everything will be fine", he repeated.

And, as in a moment of grace, the silence in the corridor was suddenly tinged with a plaintive wail.

Sherlock got up, very straight.

Lestrade considered the trembling hands of the young man with amused emotion, before noticing his own legs were affected by a very surprising tremor.

John emerged from the delivery room, removing the surgery cap they had made him wear. He looked ridiculous in the blue blouse and had a rather traumatized look.

- "It is… _done_", he concluded, apparently short of words.

Greg let out a victorious whistle, then made a small dance in circle on the impeccable tiled floor.

Sherlock didn't seem to realize at all, frozen in the middle of the corridor, with a dull look.

- "Holmes", said John, flashing up a smile. "Sherlock Holmes, come in. She's waiting for you."

He pulled him towards the door, then pushed him in the room where the nurses had taken Mary Hudson.

- "I'm sorry I kept you waiting…" murmured the young woman, turning her head to him.

Her face was very pale on the pillow. She passed a hand in her hair, as to re-do it and less frighten him.

- "Good… work…" managed to stammer Sherlock, without approaching.

She burst out laughing, weakly.

- "Come", she called, holding out her hand.

He stumbled to the bed, wrapped in his hands her fingers, the slender wrist pinned with the intravenous needle, sat down absent-mindedly in the chair Lestrade had pulled behind him.

- "Are you okay ?"

- "Yes", said Mary with a gentle stroke on his cheek. She tilted her chin, pushed aside the folds of the blanket wrapped around the baby snuggled up against her. "Look…"

Sherlock looked down and saw nothing, his eyes still clouded by retrospective fear.

- "Take her", said Mary, gently guiding his hands. "Take her in your arms, Sherlock. This is your daughter."

The young man received the package awkwardly. He propped it up against his chest, his eyes still on his wife.

- "Look at her", she repeated.

He felt before he saw.

_The warm and soft weight abandoned against him like nobody had ever been. Defenseless. Very alive._

Then he met two dark eyes in which was reflected his face.

The baby made a bubble, yawned very delicately.

_Small tight fists, creased by the fight to come into the world._

A drop fell on the wrinkled cheek of the little girl who didn't have a name yet.

Sherlock raised his head. His throat was blocked, he could not say a word.

Mary's eyes wrapped him with love and gentleness.

She smiled.

_This is now. Now begin happiness. Now the nightmare stops. This is here. Hope opens the door._

_Light came flowing in the dark world where he had lived for too long._

- "Thank you…" stammered Sherlock, unable to unlock his eyes from hers.

He had not realize he was crying.

Tears flowed without stopping on his face now lit by a sincere, peaceful, pure smile.

He hiccupped.

His arms were taken by the invaluable present, and his legs wobbly, so he was not able to leave to hide the emotion that overwhelmed him.

His back shaken with sobs, he lowered his head.

Greg wiggled, embarrassed, then decided to put a brotherly arm on the young man's shoulders, gruffly.

- "Well done", whispered John, by-passing the bed to go squeeze the hand of the newly mother.

Ye Ri touched the cheek of the man she loved, still smiling.

Between them two, the little girl had fallen asleep, trusting, in the arms of her father.

* * *

_Next chapter preview : **Thunder  
**_

Melody

Unknown caller

Friday


	9. III : Thunder

Whispers followed him along the corridor, hushed, behind the railings.

- It's an old man ...

- ... no troubles ...

- They say he killed an whole family ...

- Long time ago ...

- … Do you believe it?

The guards were pretending not to hear a word. It was no longer the same people who had seen the prisoner come in after his conviction.

_How long, already?_

_Fifteen years, sixteen years? Maybe more._

The old man was no trouble. Never. He did not say a thing, worked hard, did not get involved in others' business.

_An old chap who had certainly paid off his debt to society, now._

_He deserved to go out and die in his home town, like a free man._

They gave him his hat, his coat. A former prisoner was entitled to some dignity.

He respectfully greeted the guard who – a little puzzled - opened the prison heavy gate.

_Certainly this quiet grandfather was not the inmate they released this day, but rather a visitor…_

He raised a hand to protect his face when the winter sun wrapped him.

The warm sun on his wrinkled skin did not seem the same when he walked in the prison courtyard.

He smiled.

He was free.

_At last._


	10. Melody

John Watson parked his car and switched off the engine. He pulled out a chewing-gum from his pocket, unsealed it and put it in his mouth.

He met his own gaze in the rear-view mirror.

_Seventeen years, already..._

Time flew incredibly fast. He remembered the day he had quarrelled with his father on his way home from the river - when he had decided to become a doctor. He was so young, at that time.

He was not particularly old, now, either. He ruffled his hair, smoothed the collar of his shirt, which came out of his pullover, and got off the car, checking absent-mindingly for the smell of formalin.

He stretched, yawning in the soft sun of the end of afternoon.

He had had time to take a shower and to have a fast nap before driving up to here. He knew he was going to fill his stomach and be able to relax all evening long.

_Why ask for more?_

He rolled around his forefinger the big silver ring which hid the scar, straightened his jacket's collar - another familiar movement he had inherited from Sherlock Holmes - and searched the back pockets of his jeans.

At the hospital, he was teased on the number of times he took out his wallet to look at the picture.

- "Hey, Doc Watson, how's your littl' fiancée? D'you miss her?"

He chuckled, rubbed his upper lip with the flat of his thumb.

_Mustache shaved : okay._

He lit up stars in his eyes as he still knew so well to do and pushed the gate.

- "John!" shouted an excited crystal voice.

He only had the time to squat and to stretch out his hands.

In a storm of pink silk, long black locks and shiny ribbons, Connie threw herself in his arms.

- "Hey, princess. Did you miss me?"

The girl pulled away and pouted.

- "You smell weiwd. When aw you moving to my house?"

He pinched her nose with a broad smile.

- "Tomorrow, your highness."

- "No empty promises, John."

The young man collected the girl and got up. He propped her up on his hip and held out his hand to greet the man who had spoken.

- "Hello, Holmes."

For a split second, he was back to the back alley from where the consulting detective had saved him.

- "Daddy, can he stay for ewer?" asked the little girl, snuggling her cute pout against the shoulder of the doctor.

Sherlock hid his chuckle in his black turtleneck.

- It's better for you to not see your prince when he comes back from work.

He gave a friendly pat to the back of the young man.

- "You look worst than a white cave fish. Mary has prepared twelve teapots of your favorite tea. She also registered you on a dating site and bought you a ticket for a cruise."

John Watson shook his chin.

- "I'm sure half of these are lies."

- "But you couldn't help believing it, uh?"

The doctor had a sheepish smile. The girl was making mini-plaits in his hair, babbling.

At the door, Mary contemplated them with her sweet look. The flavor coming from the kitchen spread in the garden. It was warm, for an evening in December, almost spring weather.


	11. Unknown Caller

Greg Lestrade let out a happy growl, while he kept rummaging in his mouth with the toothpick.

- Tricky bit of meat, he muttered with a sigh of deep satisfaction.

It felt good being in the living-room, furnished with excellent taste – Mary's touch had saved them all. This had nothing to do with the terrible mess of Sherlock Holmes's den at _Baker Street_. Sleeping flames shimmered in the fireplace and the pillows of the cream sofa in which he was slouched were comfortable.

He had not taken so much weight, but it was probably his age - and the junk food a too busy cop kept on eating. His hair had completely gone grey, his small eyes had sunk into his moon face and his 'prfffr' returned more and more often.

He still liked going out and about, but his old feet now preferred searching through files boxes. He had bought himself glasses, to decipher the small characters of the newspaper. Eating at fixed hours and sleeping twenty minutes after a meal now showed itself more gratifying than an evening at the pub.

He was not married.

He was still wearing a navy blue suit, but it was not any more because they interrupted his arranged appointments to summon him on a crime scene. It probably had become his style, somehow.

He thought awhile, still chewing, his eyes on the dancing fire.

_Twenty? No, not that much …_

_Sixteen… seventeen years, here we are._

He remembered the park, buying tons of pigeon food for the only pleasure to speak to the young woman on the bench.

_Ah, youth …_

_This was a long time ago._

He believed in it, at the time. His bad luck had certainly come from the fact he had _loved_ this woman. But in the end, a good cop could never get married, and finished his life covered with old scars, eating sesame noodles on his own, wasn't it a well-known fact ?

He snorted, satisfied to have gotten rid of the meat bit, and gulped down the rest of his beer.

In front of him, John snored, his open mouth, his head knocked down on the top of the wide armchair. Snuggled up against him, her tiny fingers rolled up on a fold of his pullover, Connie made a delicate noise while sleeping. A foot in white stocking sticked out of her dress.

Lestrade giggled.

- "These small cute feet…"

A bass laughter echoed his.

Holmes sat down in the other armchair with two cold beers.

- "Cute when they sleep, much less once awoken", he commented, amused. "Incredible, the number of words that come out in a minute from the mouth of a child this age."

The police officer wasn't fooled.

- "Daddy's girl, hey? Wonder where she got her babbling habit…"

Sherlock rubbed his eyebrow, a smile of excuse on his face sharpened by the shadows cast by the fire.

- "I can't admit she leads me by the nose, Greg! Imagine the world heard about it."

Lestrade laughed with him.

With time, the relationship between the two men had evolved. It had gotten deeper, enriched. Now, neither of them could remember the days when they were in competition, unable to understand each other or to admit their errors.

- "Another beer?"

- "Hum."

They drank silently, silently toasting to the peaceful years that had passed by. To Life. To this priceless gift that was peace of heart, sprinkled in the house by a little girl who had none of their bitter memories.

- "Are you also going to London, next Wednesday?"

Sherlock agreed.

- "They asked me to, yesterday. It's been two years since I last went to a crime scene… I thought they had forgotten me", he added after a sip of beer, amused.

- It's better for the kid, that you don't travel so often anymore.

Another moment of silence, during which the telephone rang, then Sherlock's blue eyes twinkled under his dark curls.

- When will _you_ retire and devote yourself to your tomato plant, lieutenant?

Baek Do Shik snorted cheerfully.

- "Ha… who knows? I have not found me yet the perfect wife !"

Sherlock turned his head to the kitchen, a soft expression on his face.

Lestrade nodded.

_Yes.. It was the best thing that happened to you, meeting her. It was the best thing that happened to us all. In spite of all the sufferings we endured because of this case, it was the key of another life - of a new life - for each of us._

Mary came and settled on the armrest, next to her husband, with her herbal tea.

- "They're so cute…" she murmured tenderly, blowing on the hot drink.

- "I'll put her in her bed before she catches a cold", said Sherlock, starting to get up.

She grabbed his sleeve.

- "John keeps her warm, it's okay."

He surrounded without a fight, slid his arm around his wife's waist, stretched his long legs on the carpet.

- "Who was on the phone?"

- "Nobody. A wrong number, I guess."

Mary's earrings shone in the orange light that bathed the living-room.

Greg Lestrade sipped his beer, relaxed.

The doctor and the little girl's breaths were in rhythm with the quiet noise of the fire sparkling in the hearth.

Life was good.


	12. Friday

Mary nodded, then remembered he could not see her.

- "We'll be okay", she said in the receiver. "She asked for you a little, but she didn't cry. She's a big girl, she knows you have to work and can't do as you wish."

- "It's been three whole days, in the end… I really hoped to come back tonight. This is so stupid. I didn't think they would insist so much for us to participate in the investigation."

She chuckled.

Sherlock's voice reminded her of a grounded child.

She signed to Connie who played on the living-room carpet.

- "Come talk to Daddy, He's sad he can't be with us!"

The girl grabbed the plush bear who drank tea in front of her and came running. She took the receiver with a graceful gesture and rested it against her cheek.

- "Daddy? It's cold in London?"

- "Not too much, it's okay", answered Holmes who skipped on the spot, next to the car, his white breath smoking in the thick fog wrapping the city.

Greg Lestrade shot him a mocking eye through the windshield. He was perfectly guessing what the conversation was about.

- "Are you a good girl? Don't eat too much candy. I'll bring back a surprise for you, tomorrow."

- "A doll?"

Sherlock thought for a moment.

- "No. But I won't give you any clues."

- "That's not nice!"

He laughed.

- "I love you, sweetie."

- "I love you too, Daddy."

She returned the phone to her mother.

- "See you tomorrow, Sherlock, don't forget to sleep at least a bit", said Mary, the receiver stuck between her shoulder and her ear, while retying the brait ribbon of the little girl.

- "I'm not thirty any more", giggled her husband. "I'll let Watson do the sleepless nights. D'you know they also called him? I won't tell Connie before tomorrow, I don't want to have to run to the other end of the building to pass him on the phone."

- "She will be crossed with you", warned Mary.

- "What did he say, Mummy?" asked Connie, looking up. "Is it about my suwpwise?"

- "I still don't know what I'll get her", confessed Sherlock who had heard the question. He blew on his fingers to warm them, his chin buried in his black jacket's collar. "It's so cold, here! But we don't even have snow."

- "They say we'll have some tomorrow, at home. Do you have enough clothes? I didn't planned on you staying to the end of the week."

- "I did some laundry at the hotel. Do you also want something from London?"

Mary pretended to think for a few seconds. Connie had returned to the carpet and spoke to the plush bear she rocked in her arms.

- "Just you, it'll be enough", finally said the young woman.

Holmes laughed again.

- "See you tomorrow."

- "I love you", said Mary.

She switched off the phone, noticed the call light flashing.

_Unknown caller_.

Somebody was getting their number wrong on regular basis, lately.

- "What are we eating, tonight?" she asked, turning to her daughter.

- "Noodles!"

Mary sighed, amused.

- "You'll eat all the noodles you want when you're a detective. Why don't we have an only-for-girls dish, for once?"

Connie puffed her cheeks, tilted her head aside, squinted – then smiled, showing her baby teeth.

- "Okay!" she exclaimed.

- "Ah, phew…" said Mary. "I was beginning to think we'd never use the sugar flowers John brought for your birthday…"

The girl ran up to her immediately, with sparkling eyes, her plush bear stuck under her arm.

- "Sugaw flowews?"

Mary leaned to open the cupboard and show them to her.

She did not see the shadow that quickly passed outside of the house, behind the house plants on the window above the kitchen sink.

The evening was growing red, night falling slowly.

The calendar showed : "month: December ; date: 09 ; day: Thursday".

* * *

_Next Chapter Preview : **Lightning**_

Message

A little shoe

Scotch tape


	13. IV : Lightning

The weather was cold and dry. The sun leaked out through the fog, drilling the clouds with a shimmering blue sky patch.

- "Let's use that bit of light to take a picture!" exclaimed John Watson. " It's not every day the whole _Baker Street_ team is gathered on a crime scene."

- "Miss Hudson's isn't here", specified Holmes, with a sneaky smile.

- "Ha! I meant the _men_ of 221b Baker Street, the roommates, the testosterone - the guys, now!

Sherlock laughed frankly, this time.

Greg Lestrade looked down at his suit.

- "I always look like a scarecrow on these occasions…" he muttered. He patted the top of his hair, trying to flatten his gray quiff. "Well… so be it."

John called up a policeman who was coming out the house, skipping under the yellow stripes.

- "Please", he asked, handing him his cellphone. "Could you take a picture of us?"

The guy stared at him, taken aback.

_Funny consultants, really…_

They had made them come, calling them "the aces", but somebody must had done a mistake.

He focused the three heads on the screen, waited for the green signal, then pressed on the button.

_Click!_

An old man with a grey quaff, in a navy blue suit, fabric worn out on the elbows and knees, his hands in his pockets, looking smug.

A young man, in a white coat, with a shy smile, a shoulder higher than the other like an apologizing child.

And a bony man with ethereal blue eyes, in a long black jacket, who smiled amused, between them two.

Nobody could earnestly believe these three were the living legends of the 221b Baker Street.


	14. Message

Sherlock pressed on the remote control and changed the picture on the meeting room screen.

- "If we consider the victims were given drugs to keep them quiet until he killed them, but that he did not touch them _until_ a certain moment, then the date and the exact hour of their deaths surely have crucial importance for the criminal."

On the screen, the picture showed the three victims - father, daughter-in-law and eight-years-old grandson - such as they had been discovered the previous week: in the middle of the green living-room, tied up and sitting each on a chair, back to back in a circling shape, each lowered head in a paper bag.

There were no signs of fight, only the vestiges of a not very clean nor very tidy family.

On the mirror which occupied the wall in length, four big letters had been painted in a bloody red.

_"FAKE"_

It was not blood, though, but oil paint - there wasn't the slightest drop of blood anywhere. The victims had cleanly been suffocated, before the criminal had put on them the dreadful hat of brown paper.

- "All of them have died between 20:00 to 20:15 on December the 03rd. Last Friday, in other words."

Greg Lestrade scratched his nose, leaning against the wall.

_03._

_" Fake. "_

_Father, Daughter, Grandson._

There was a silence in which you could almost hear the brains ruminate and rustle in search of a link in the collected data.

- "I get it", said suddenly Detective Lee.

It was the arrogant young man to whom the investigation had belonged before the Head of Police had decided to turn it into national teamwork. He stood up and picked up an erasable felt-tip pen.

- "_Fake_, for deceit. The man: _father_", he scribbled on the glass panel. "Daughter: _female_, the third of December: _Friday_. Do we know anything special about the kid? Something beginning with a -F-."

There was a skeptical rustle.

- "Do you think you're back to the golden age, Lee?" scoffed somebody.

- "The case's been closed for ten years!" growled out somebody else.

None of the former roommates of _Baker Street_ would have called it "the golden age", though. Too much bitter memories were bound to the initial F.

Sherlock focused on the picture on the screen.

John shook his head, chewing on the cap of his pen.

- "That does not make sense… he never murdered a whole family…only women…" muttered Greg, not wanting to let go of the slightest random coincidence.

_Family_ also began with an F.

Detective Lee pouted, blowing a rather condescending eye on the room. He opened his mouth but Sherlock cut him off.

- "If this is a copy-cat murder, then writing "fake" would make sense, he said slowly, putting his hands in his pockets. He paced a bit, thoughtful. "But why tell us, then? An accomplice who would have spilled the beans? But why? Or was there a second passage on the crime scene before it was discovered? Somebody who had a reason not to call the police and preferred to write this…"

Now, the investigators gathered around the long oval table began to think about it too.

Detective Lee twitched in annoyance and dropped in his seat.

Obviously, once the hypothesis had passed through the mouth of the ex-consulting detective, it was taken into account and not anymore laughing stock.

- "Where does the paint they used to write it come from ? Was it already on the spot?"

John quickly went through his notepad.

- "No", he answered, scratching his head. "We established the murderer brought it with him."

- "Thus it was planned", thought aloud Sherlock Holmes. He crossed his arms, settled comfortably in front of the image with the sharpened face his former teammates knew by heart. "No person X who discovers the scene, that is. Unless it was a house painter equipped with the exact can of blood red oil paint…"

His thumb went to his upper lip, finding back the familiar gestuure of intense reflection.

The phone rang. Inspector Lee leaned in and picked up the receiver in front of him.

- "It's for you, M. Holmes", he said after a few minutes. "The caller didn't give his name, but they insisted with the desk lady, saying it's about the current investigation.

Sherlock nodded. His eyes didn't leave the screen.

- "Put him in loudspeaker", he said absently.

There was a slight crackle when the call passed into the speakers, then a light humming.

- "Sherlock Holmes speaking", said the detective, still perched on the edge of the table, focused on the picture.

Around the table, some officers were consulting their notes, others were waiting to know what the call was going to bring to the investigation.

The buzz was disturbed by a muffled sound, something that could be interpreted as a whimper or a sniff.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

- Hello?

Still the buzzing, then a metallic sound.

And immediately after, a frightened sob.

Somebody was crying on the phone.

Sherlock uncrossed his arms and slowly stood up.

Greg's eyes narrowed.

John tilted his head aside, as he frowned.

Then they heard a small broken voice.

- "Da… Da-d-dy… Da… Da…Da-d-d-y… come and g-get me, Da-ddy … Da-ad-dy… p-p…p-p-lease… D-a-d-dy…"

Sherlock's face lost all color.

He opened his mouth but no sound came out of it.

The communication broke off suddenly and Detective Lee stretched out his hand to switched off the sizzling that resounded in the loudspeakers.

- Was that a child?

- What does it mean?

- What's all this about?

- Where does the call come from?

Questions came spurted out from everywhere in the room.

Watson banged his knee against the foot of the table as he got up to run to Holmes who had remained motionless. Lestrade quickly passed by the table and came to join them. He grabbed the man's arm.

- "It was Connie's voice, right?" he whispered.

John was dialing a number on his cellphone, a hand on Sherlock's shoulder.

- "Mary isn't answering her mobile", he said hurriedly. "I'll try calling the landline!"

Detective Lee got up and thumped the table with a file to capture everyone's attention.

- "Silence!" he ordered. "Holmes, what does that mean?"

All heads turned to the end of the table and, at this moment, the policemen realized something was amiss.

Watson was always still on the phone and paced in circles, whispering.

- Pick up… pick up… pick up…

Greg massaged the nape of his neck, his eyes on the ground, breathing through clenched teeth.

The ex-consulting detective was petrified, with an empty look in his eyes.

- "Sherlock Holmes?"

Detective Lee frowned.

- "No answer", announced John, giving a punch to the suspended screen which crinkled for a second.

- "Who's this bastard and how does he know you're here?" hissed Lestrade.

- "Excuse me!" yelled Detective Lee, annoyed.

As in echo, another voice launched the same question from the meeting room door.

- "Excuse me… a delivery for m. Sherlock Holmes. A parcel to be delivered personally."

Sherlock turned his head to the door, staring blankly.

- "Who's the sender?" growled Greg, rushing to the delivery boy.

- "Er … No name here. Just a PO box and a message. Er… "I miss you already."

The parcel was snatched from his hands.

- "It's true", confirmed the police officer, after searching thoroughly the label.

The skin between his eyebrows had wrinkled even more.

- "There's only an initial."

John's face became white. His fingers tightened on the detective's sleeve.

- "F."

Some people got up, others began to whisper.

- "What's that?

- "Is it a bad joke?"

Lestrade returned to the end of the table with the small rectangular parcel and paused before giving it to the former consulting detective.

- "It's an express courier. It was sent this morning."

- "Open it, Sherlock", said John, slowly pressing on the man's shoulder to sit him down on the chair pushed behind him.

Sherlock Holmes tore the safety tape and the contents of the parcel slid out the brown paper.

All eyes were on him.

It was a small plastic pink icebox, like those used by children for their school lunch.

John's eyes widened with fear as Greg snatched the small box and stepped away from Holmes.

- "Give it back, Greg", said Sherlock with a pleading look.

- "No", articulated the detective.

Horror had filled the room as a thick fog, a sinking veil that changed up to the color of objects, furniture and faces.

Everybody gathered in this room knew very well what was in the pink box.

Greg Lestrade turned his back on the rest of the room and breathed deeply. His hand trembled as he approached the plastic clasp.

He did not want to imagine what was inside.

_One of Mary's slender fingers or the chubby finger of a baby, on a bed of ice…_

Sherlock had stopped breathing.

John's eyes were filled with burning tears.

The clasp made a quiet noise as it opened.


	15. A little shoe

John Watson was holding his left hand in front of his mouth, while his right hand drew soothing circles in the back of the detective who was bending over the sink.

_Why…_

_Why…_

_Why…_

It was cold in the men's toilets and the light wasn't very bright.

John tried to put as much comfort as he could in his gesture.

Ji-Hoon was shaken by a last gasp and threw up, folded in half. His knuckles were white on the sink marbled edge. He straightened up, opening the faucet, met his pale reflection, forehead flooded with sweat.

- "You okay?" whispered the young doctor, awkwardly.

He tore away a handful of paper and gave it to the consulting detective.

Sherlock did not answer.

He waited for the sink to be clear, then rinsed his mouth and splashed his face before accepting the paper towels.

His eyes lowered, he stepped out to leave the room.

- "Thank you..."

His voice was barely audible.

- "Holmes…" murmured John, broken-hearted.

They passed by Inspector Lee who had waited in the corridor, next to the toilets door and who stared at the detective unbelievingly, before catching the doctor's arm.

- "I know this was no fun, but why such a reaction? He lost his touch…"

John stared at him.

There was more concern than disappointment in the police officer's eyes.

He waited for Sherlock to enter the meeting room.

- "We're talking about his wife and daughter being abducted", he sighed finally. "Anyone would go nuts in his shoes…"

Lee opened wide eyes, stunned.

In the room, Lestrade had probably given the same explanation to the others, because nobody reacted when Holmes came back after rushing out ten minutes earlier.

The icebox was still on the oval table.

Sherlock approached it slowly.

He bit his lip, closed a fist.

The silence was thick in the room.

- "We'll get him", said Greg in a low voice, putting his hand on Holmes' shoulder. "We _are_ going to save Mary and our kid."

Sherlock nodded, almost imperceptibly.

His eyes were staring at the contents of the box.

It was not filled with ice cubes, but with green silk paper.

Nestled between the folds was a small shoe.

A black and shiny and cute little shoe, with a label on the sole that said "C. H.".

The man held out his hand. He hesitated, then took the shoe.

Something slid and fell in the box.

Sherlock breathed in deeply, tipping over his head for one moment as to prevent his tears from overflowing. He took back the control of his emotion and his eyes went back to the green silk paper.

A transparent earring glittered at the bottom of the box.

He closed his eyes.

Then reopened them.

Everybody was looking at him and everybody saw the transformation take place in a few seconds.

His chin tilted on the side. His eyes turned ice blue under his accentuated eyebrows, on his sharpened features. His mouth folded in a sarcastic grin. His shoulders tightened as if invisible wings stretched out in his back. All his body curled up like an animal going into hunting.

- "Let's go", he ordered.

He put the shoe back in the box and shut the icebox swiftly, before leaving the room with long and strong strides.

Greg and John did not hesitate and followed him hastily, getting back their coats and his.

- "The _Monster_…has awoken", murmured somebody.

Detective Lee had ever seen anything so impressive.

They drove back without really seeing the road. The car parked in a wreath of snow in front of the house and Sherlock rushed out the driver's seat after grabbing the small pink box that had traveled under the windscreen.

The door was closed. Just before taking out his keys, the man paused. His piercing gaze settled on the flowerpot next to the step.

- Wait, he warned, raising a hand to stop the two others who were behind him.

He crouched. Reached out. His fingers brushed for a moment against the ceramic, then he lifted the jar, quickly.

The house keys were where he kept telling Mary not to put them when she went out.

He collected them and stood up.

- "He knows our habits perfectly", he stated dully.

The door opened like any other day, slid on the wooden floor effortlessly.

The same smell.

_Not a sound._

_Not a voice._

He stepped in, took off his shoes absently. The sun of the end of afternoon streamed through the windows.

- Mary?

Nobody was going answer, he knew it.

His eyes searched the living-room, the cream sofa and the well arranged pillows, the big bookcase, the green plants by the window, the framed pictures on the shelves, the round table where Connie left her pencils and drawings.

_Everything was perfectly at its place._

_Not a detail, not a speck of dust, nothing. _

John skipped behind him, went to the kitchen, using his phone as a camera.

- "We need the forensics", said Greg beside him. "We'll need to analyze all this. There must be prints."

Sherlock nodded.

- I know.

He went across the room, to the corridor.

Their bedroom seemed untouched as well. The door was half-opened and he had a glimpse of the white duvet and the blue shawl Mary had left on top of it, with a book - as he often saw it in this place.

He stood still in front of the door at the end of the corridor. Tightened his fists in his pockets and breathed in before pressing on the latch.

He pushed the flap that slid, hushed, on the clear carpet.

The bedroom was bathed in the setting sun ethereal light.

_Connie was giggling happily beside the round canopy with the veil sowed with pearls that turned her bed into a "real princess's bed". _

He was taken away in a waltz, the room swirled around him in sweet colors.

_Connie was sitting in the small rocking chair with her plush bear and rocked, a big blue ribbon bow in her hair._

_Connie__ turned around and smiled with all her tiny teeth, shaking a glass ball in which whirled snowflakes._

_Connie was dancing on the carpet, dressed like a fairy, in the happy jingle of little bells._

_Connie was sliding off her bed and running up to him._

_- "Daddy!"_

- "You okay?"

The sudden voice of Lestrade made him quiver. He realized he had knelt down, as to receive his daughter in his arms.

He looked around, lost.

The bedroom was empty.

Much more tidy than it had never been.

- "She's not there…" he murmured.

The old detective crouched beside him, pressed his shoulder friendly.

- "We'll find her", he said one more time. "Stay focused."

Sherlock swallowed.

It was at this moment he realized _what_ was out of place in the room.

There was a small shoe in the middle of the bed, on the flowery duvet.

Another black little shoe, identical to the one the icebox contained.


	16. Scotch Tape

Mary came back to consciousness in small touches, like a light dotting through the fog.

_It was dark._

_So dark._

Her head was throbbing, she hurt everywhere and at the same time she couldn't feel her arms and her legs.

She had the hideous feeling her skin was covered with hot dough.

_No._

Her hair was pinched on her forehead.

It was not dough, but _tape_. Tape wrapped all over her face. The king of tape you use when you move out, wide and resistant.

The same tape that was wrapped around her face in the warehouse where she had almost died like her sister.

Her heart raced, her breath speed up. She wanted to open her mouth, but her lips were sealed by green and sticky plastic. She stirred, moaned - her brain darkened as air tried a find a way out through her throat.

_No - no - no - no – NO_

She lost consciousness, again.

When she came back to her senses, she realized a tiny stream of oxygen crept up to her nostrils.

A small space between the adhesive strips.

She tried hard to calm down, to contain the storm of desperation that rose in her esophagus and threatened to suffocate her again.

_I'm still alive._

_Where am I?_

_Where's Connie?_

_What happened?_

Taking in a big breath was impossible, of course. And she needed to remind herself constantly that her nose was cleared, even if her mouth could not open.

Something was tightened around her chest.

_Ropes._

She was sitting, tied up to a chair.

The adhesive tape twinge also burned her wrists, in her back. Her arms hurt, twisted behind the chair.

She tried to move her legs, realized her ankles were also tied up.

She couldn't hear a thing. No noise of car, or wind, or even a throat scrap.

_Was the one who held her prisoner here ?_

_What had he done with Connie?_

Her head hurt, still clouded. She could remember speaking to Sherlock on the phone, but she had no memory of what had happened afterwards.

_Sherlock._

_Oh no._

_He will hurt so much …_

Tears bubbled at the edge of her eyes, behind the plastic. They slid between the adhesive tape strips, following an unusual path, pearling up to the edge of her nose, then somewhere under her ear. For a moment, salty water blocked her nostril - and the teensy stream of air. She choked.

_Don't cry._

_Don't cry at any cost._

She swallowed and discovered swallowing was something she shouldn't do as well. Her throat was dry and burnt, and she was in dire need of a cup of cold water.

There was a noise – muffled – not far from her. Then a movement, as if something bounced.

She tilted her head aside, attentive, trying hard to shut out her fear.

_It couldn't be "him"._

_Maybe it was an animal._

She smelt nothing, no straw or animal scent.

There was a stifled moan.

_Was anybody else prisoner with her?_

Her heart swelled with hope…

_Connie._

Then broke.

- Mu-u-m-my… m-u-umm-y …

The small, terrified, sobbing voice of her little girl.

She wanted to speak, but she couldn't. She stirred, moved her feet, moved some dust that came blocking up the free space between the strips of tape.

She blew throught her nostrils to clear them, desperate.

_Connie! Connie, Mummy's here! Connie! __It's okay, It's okay… Oh baby…_

She tried to bite the adhesive tape, managed only to scrape it with her teeth and fill her mouth with the disgusting smell of green plastic.

- Mummy?

The question was so fragile, so lost.

Mary banged her wrists against the steel of the chair, hoping the ringing of her bracelet would be familiar.

- Mummy!

Again the stifled noise, then the bouncing on the ground, followed by what had to be a fall. A gasp, then the movement got closer to her.

_Connie… Connie…_

A terrified shriek.

At the same time, a hand grabbed her shoulder brutally and the fear that gushed out in her was enough to make her almost lose consciousness.

She felt someone cut the adhesive tape, freeing her numb wrists. Somebody twisted her sluggish arm and she felt something cold and metallic against her skin.

A jingle.

One of her arms was free, but the other one was handcuffed to something.

_Connie! What had he done to her daughter?_

Heavy steps went away.

She was trembling, trying hard not to let anxiety convince her she could not breath.

- M-m-u-mm-y …

She reached out a groping arm, touched somebody.

_Connie? Oh, please let it be her!_

A tiny strawberry shaped button.

_Oh, baby…_

Her hand touched the chin of the little girl who shivered violently.

_It's me, Connie. I'm here. Mummy's here, sweetie…_

She patted the child's cheek, cupped her ear in her hand as she always did. After a moment of hesitation, Connie seemed to recognize the gesture and her head snuggled up to the hand.

Mary's blood ran cold.

Her fingers had feel something cold and rough – something made of plastic.

_The little girl was blindfolded with a wide strip of adhesive tape._

Mary felt a howl of fury winding in her chest, growing against the ropes who held her prisoner.

_Who dare do this to a child?_

She wanted to bite, to throw her legs around her and reach to their kidnapper, to hurt him.

But she didn't move.

_If he was there, maybe he would pay back by separating her from Connie._

_If he was not here, such agitation could frighten even more the little girl who could not see._

She drew the child to her, nestled her on her lap, felt her snuggle up against her chest, sobbing quietly.

-Mummy… I a-am s-s-cawed… Mu-u-mm-y…

Connie was not hurt. Adhesive was closely wrapped up around her ankles and her wrists tied up in front of her. Her feet were cold in her scratched tights. But apart from the tape on her eyes, she wasn't wearing the same green torture mask.

Mary wished to kiss her, but she didn't want the plastic on her face to touch the little girl's skin. She hugged strong her baby, rocked her to calm her tears, hoping the beating of her heart would be enough to reassure the child.

_Do you hear me, Connie? I'm here… I won't leave you… don't worry…_

She banished her own fear.

She would stand firm, until they come to save them from this hell.

_Sherlock._

_Come to save us, please._

* * *

_Next Chapter Preview : **Storm**_

Clues

'Freak'

"Long time no see"


	17. V : STORM

There were posters everywhere on electric poles, flyers given out at the stations, articles on the Internet.

* * *

_Citizen Alert - Citizen Alert – Citizen Alert_

* * *

On the big screens of the city, the kidnapped girl's face appeared from a building to the other one. A little girl with long black curls, a pink silk ribbon in her hair, who smiled slyly at the photographer, her head tilted aside.

* * *

_Whoever is able to provide information about Connie Holmes, who is missing since Thursday evening, is asked to dial the number below or to contact immediately the closest police station._

* * *

They were warning the citizens not to try anything, because the kidnapper could turn out to be extremely nervous and dangerous.

But no where was it said that the mother of the child had been kidnapped at the same time.

The police thought the young woman was already dead.


	18. Clues

There were no prints in the house. Nowhere. From the front door handle to the little shoe left on the bed, everything had been perfectly wiped.

John Watson was kneeling down in the living-room, next to the telly, and nibbled the nail of his thumb.

- "Why send us the parcel and make the effort to call if you left no clues in the house?" He thought aloud.

Greg Lestrade was leaning on the wall in the bedroom, arms crossed, his eyes on the pale blue carpet.

_Did he take the child with him because she had seen him, or was it his plan from the start? Why does a serial killer trouble himself with a hostage?_

Sherlock Holmes was in the kitchen, bending over the kitchen sink, so lost in thoughts he looked like a statue.

- "Why did you not defend yourself, Mary? Where did he come from?" he murmured, his eyes searching the slightest details of the cooking plane surface, the plants on the window shelf, the empty pan on the gas cooker, the half empty bag of sugar flowers, the clean spoon and the glass of water …

His blue eyes glistened.

_An almost EMPTY bag of sugar flowers._

_But no trace of sugar anywhere._

He lifted the container of wooden spoons, the boxes, the flowerpots. Bent to pass his fingers on the cupboard doors in search of sticky tracks, knelt down to examine the tiled floor.

- "Come check this out!" John exclaimed at this time.

He raised his head. The young man was showing the telly.

A red button flashed on the VCR.

Sherlock got up immediately and rushed to it, telling an analyst on his way to look under the cupboards. Greg appeared from the corridor and came to join them after a last "go through this bedroom with a fine-tooth comb first and foremost! " to the forensic team.

- "Mary would have switched it off, isn't it? If they were done watching the film. And if they were interrupted, why would the culprit only _paused_, instead of switching off everything?"

Sherlock approved in silence, his throat tight.

Lestrade blew through his teeth, his small eyes shrunk to the size of cracks.

- "Well done, Watson."

The young man switched on the screen and pressed on the _play_ button.

It was a video filmed by a rather poor quality camcorder, but they recognized the living-room. The device had been set on top of the telly.

They could distinguished in the background Mary's body, sluggish, on the tiled floor of the kitchen.

- God… breathed out John, his hands clutching his notepad.

Connie's face, smeared with tears, appeared on the screen, very close. She had probably been pushed and she looked upper left, as if somebody spoke to her.

They heard strictly nothing.

A black glove entered the picture. It held a Dictaphone and made an imperious gesture.

Connie was trembling, terrified.

She sniffed, then spoke through her sobs and the three men knew exactly what she was saying.

- "No need to analyze the phone recording", mumbled Greg. "It was here."

The Dictaphone disappeared, then another thick glove appeared, holding a roll of adhesive tape.

John grabbed Holmes' sleeve.

Lestrade's teeth were so clenched they creaked.

Sherlock let out a groan of pain when the green tape was wildly wrapped around the eyes of the little girl.

They heard nothing.

But Connie screamed in terror on the screen.

Then the picture went out abruptly and the white and grey pixels danced in front of them with a dull humming.

- "How d-d-does he d-dare?" stuttered John, choking up.

- "The bastard. The dog. Oh, I'm so going to kill him", growled Greg, shivering with fury.

Sherlock stepped aside, as if he had lost his balance.

His eyes stared at the screen – with a big empty look.

- "Holmes?"

John was pleading.

- "Please…"

He did not know what to say.

_Don't lose it now._

_He's torturing you on purpose._

_We ARE going to save them, for sure… For sure._

_Please, don't go crazy …_

Lestrade turned his eyes to his former consulting detective.

_Did not he suffer enough? _

_Why? WHY?_

He put his hand on the man's shoulder.

- "Sherlock… Do you remember what I told you, long ago? I'll find him, and I'll beat him for you. I promise."

The detective nodded slowly, without looking at him.

His blue eyes were filled with tears that did not pour.

- "Sorry. You have to see this …"

Sherlock quivered. He turned around.

The analyst dressed in white presented him the tablet with which he had taken the picture.

- "It was under the cupboard, quite far."

In sugar dust scattered on the black tiled floor, somebody had drawn three letters.

_O-L-D_

Lestrade frowned.

- "This is Mary's writing, she managed to leave a message in spite of this nutcase", livened up John.

- "But when? How didn't he notice?"

Sherlock made a movement towards the television, as to start the video again, but was interrupted by another forensic who arrived running from the corridor.

- "Look at this!" He exclaimed. "It was under the girl's bed, stuck on the bed slats with chewing gum."

He displayed on the coffee table a dozen Polaroid pictures.

Sherlock knelt down, scattering the photos to get an overview.

They were portraits of women.

All of them sitting on chairs.

All of them tied up.

All of them with their faces wrapped up in a plastic shroud.


	19. Freak

Arms crossed, slightly leaning back, Sherlock was standing in front of the big transparent board covered with post-it, Polaroid pictures, scrawled notes, reports and adhesive tape arrows linking everything together.

Greg Lestrade was seated behind him, shifting his head to the right to see the board as well, an arm crossed behind his chair, his small eyes going from one information to another very quickly.

John Watson was perched at the end of the oval table, hands joint between his knees.

All three were silent.

Around them, the room buzzed with activity. Detectives passed with folders, babbled on the phone, quarreled, carried and emptied cardboards and archives boxes. A window was half-opened and the hubbub of the street came from the night – horns, steps, the gleaming red halo of the traffic lights. Far off, the great wheel was turning slowly, through the checkerboard of the high buildings' windows.

In an angle of the ceiling, a suspended screen was giving the evening news in mute. The alert band scrolled at the bottom of the picture.

Now, it was twenty six hours after Connie and Mary had been kidnapped.

On several computers flashed the hour and the date when the kidnapper had filmed the video found at the house. Analysts were trying to enlarge details.

Greg Lestrade sighed. He got up, put his hands in his pockets and came up to the board.

- "Rachel Doyle and then the others ... Olivia Bennett, Anna Green, Rafaela Paoli, Teri Evans , Yuki Peters, Joan Townsend, Adele Nashville, Melain Richardson , Emily Gatt ... with the same label, _'friend'_," he said slowly, tapping his folded index against the glass.

The women whose identities they had just finish checking had died the same way : suffocated in diverse materials – a bag from a construction site, aluminum film, a long piece of resin.

John came up to the old cop and pointed at the two following portraits of the display. They were not Polaroid shots but images downloaded on the Internet and reprinted on some photo paper.

- "Sara Hudson and Irene Adler. These are not murders committed by "F", but they are labeled like Molly Hooper, the only survivor and the first known victim: _'freak'_."

Irene Adler had been killed by Mycroft Doyle, the brother of Rachel Doyle, in a copycat of "F" murders. The young man was enough desperate to believe that killing a detective's fiancée could help the investigation - or at least wake up the police.

Sara Hudson, who had been his accomplice had later committed suicide. Sherlock Holmes - in a moment of madness or of genius bitterness - had disguised her death into a murder to trap the copycat of "F".

Mary Hudson had come to him while he claimed to be the killer.

- "Why is the only woman to have escaped "F" in this collection?" muttered Greg gloomily.

Sherlock approached too, his thumb rubbing on his upper lip like he used to do, when they worked in the living-room of the _221b Baker Street_.

- "Why is Molly among the Polaroids?" he murmured. "Does he take their portrait before they die? Why did he keep her picture if she did not die?"

He rested his hand against the board, his eyes intensely staring at the woman he had one day used as bait.

John nibbled on his pen. He took down one of the pictures taken on the murder scene from the previous week, one showing the bloody inscription on the mirror.

- "When he called up to give us the recording of Connie's voice, he clearly told the front desk lady it was about something connected to the investigation", he thought aloud. "_Fake_ … _Friday… face… female… friend… freak_…"

- "What's with the label _'freak'_?" muttered Greg.

- A monster born from a deformation of normality. An aberration", said John after a moment. "A _monster_ can be created or be the symbol of something. A _freak_ is an accident, an ugliness we don't want to face."

- "_A deformation we don't want to face_" repeated slowly Sherlock, his eyes gleaming in the shade of the pale neon light.

Lestrade's forehead wrinkled. He rubbed his face and forced his tired eyes to browse again the board display.

- "An aberration we do not want to face…"

- "The bait!" said John all of a sudden. "Using the victim to get the murderer."

He made a apologetic face. He remembered the horror they had felt when discovering this attempt of the consulting detective the newspapers nicknamed _Monster_.

Molly Hooper, forced to stay alone in the room where she had nearly died, to draw "F" out of his den...

- "A suicide disguised as manslaughter… an imitation… a trap… a vengeance…" muttered the police officer, pacing up and down almost in slow motion. "A plot by a detective… the brother of a victim murders somebody…"

- "_Victim_", said suddenly Sherlock, a sarcastic smile in the corner of his mouth. " _Detective_. Two words which are the exact opposite of _murderer_, and yet they are the ones who kill in these pictures."

- "You didn't kill Sara Hudson, only made us believe you did", protested the young doctor. "She committed suicide."

- "For "F", it may be the exact same thing", brightened Lestrade. "Attempt, imitation, camouflage. In every case, it's a murder according to his style."

Sherlock tilted his head aside, with the sardonic expression the two others knew and feared.

- "It's not only that. He's having fun. He always had fun with us. He boasts and stages. _Victim. Detective. Freak_. He's not referring to the trap, it's a picture from when she was his prisoner. "F" is a cop."

John's eyes widened.

_"Don't worry, ma'am, you're okay, now. I am with the police."_

Greg snorted in disgust.

- "I forgot the victim's deposition, indeed."

- "So we're stuck at the same point, just like at that time" grumbled John. "This doesn't help at all! He's making fun of us…"

Sherlock made a denial gesture.

- "On the contrary. We're moving forward. He labels himself as 'freak', and gives the same nickname to Mycroft Doyle. Something's wrong with his attempt of murder on Molly, and it's not because she didn't die. He would have called it 'failure', or something of the kind. No, this is progress in the direction he wants us to take… _Fake_ is our next clue. What else do we know about last Friday's victims?

He turned to the rest of the room, noticing suddenly the silence that had established there. The detectives had listened to their reasoning and were nodding as they understood.

- "The man is a retired cop", said Inspector Lee, coming closer, a bundle of documents in hand. " And do you know the best of it? There weren't father and daughter, but a couple."

John made a disgusted pout.

- "The kid?" asked Greg.

- "Recorded nowhere. It's probably theirs, but he doesn't exist officially."

Sherlock's eyes narrow, his thumb playing with his lips.

- "What do we know about the cop?"

- "Average services. No trouble mate but not super bright either. Only case of his career that made him shine was when he arrested an arsonist, seventeen years ago. A whole family burnt to ashes: father, mother, kid. That hit the headlines, at the time, because the criminal was a detective."

- "A detective!"

Lestrade began chuckling, almost as if he was crazy.

- "Name of the arsonist?" asked Holmes with authority. "Where is he now?"

Detective Lee consulted the file frantically, in an anxious silence.

- "Jim Francis Moriarty. He was given twenty years, he's still behind bars."

- "Are we sure of that?" John insisted.

- "I'll call to confirm", said Lee. He took a step towards the door, then hesitated and turned to Holmes who had not moved, still deep in thoughts. "The strangest thing about this case is the fact the guy has never admitted it was him. He was convicted because evidence was multiple against him and they decided he was either nuts or a very good actor."

He went off, pulling with him a pair of young policemen.

- "Jim Moriarty…" growled out Lestrade. "It is really your name, 'F'?"

John took a felt-tip and wrote the name in the compartment "suspect", after erasing the question mark with the back of his hand.

- "_Fake_…" murmured Sherlock.

He closed his eyes for a moment, touched his temple.

- "_Friend_… detective… _Fake_… _freak_ …"

His neck was heavy and blood throbbed under his skull.

- "_Friday_… _female_… _face_ …"

- "There's a link, but what? _Ah_, this is getting more and more complicated, every time we think we've got something!" Watson complained, ruffling his hair.

The felt-tip felt and rolled on the spotless ground of the meeting room, up to the feet of the consulting detective.

Sherlock opened his eyes.

- "Policeman… bait… victim… traps…"

He saw the felt-tip and leaned over to collect it.

- "John, I think I know", he said, standing up abruptly.

Black stars danced in front of him and the room flickered and faded away.


	20. Long time no see

- "Sherlock!" shouted the young doctor, rushing to the man who was swaying.

The detective collapsed heavily, a hand on his face. Anxiously, Greg supported him to the ground.

- "Holmes… you okay?"

Other policemen approached, worried.

- "I'm fine… I'll be okay in a minute…" murmured Sherlock. "It's nothing…"

John crouched down beside him, a small bottle of water in his hand.

- "Drink", he ordered, opening the bottle and giving it to his former roommate.

He exchanged a look with Greg.

- "Has he eaten anything since this morning?"

The old detective shook his head.

- "Nothing, and he didn't have even water since he threw up. And we spent almost all last night long on last friday case. Sherlock… you can't keep going on like this. Maybe in the past you could, but not now – not on _this_ case.

Holmes didn't answer.

The coldness of the water was good. His head hurt.

- "Rest a little…" pleaded John. "There's a bed on the resting room on first floor. Don't you want to… no?"

Lestrade said nothing, his elbows on his thighs.

The policemen were whispering, all around.

_- "You need to be a damned superhuman to lead an investigation such as this one…"_

_- "His wife and her daughter…"_

_- "I never could…"_

Sherlock breathed deep after a last sip, massaged his temples, as to erase a migraine, then braced to get up.

John and Greg helped him on the feet. He staggered a bit, then gently pushed them away.

- "It's nothing… 'was just a little dizzy. John, another word for "taking the blame"?"

The young man swallowed.

- "Er… _framed_. That's it. _Framed_ ! An -f- again !"

Sherlock sat down heavily on the chair Lestrade had pulled, his eyes studying the board.

- "We're missing something… the fire… something's smelling fishy…"

Inspector Lee entered the meeting room, followed by a rookie who carried a bunch of fast food paper bags.

- "Let's get stamina, everybody! Tons of caffeine, tea for the purist and stuff to bulge, help yourself. We need to remain focused! "

He let the policemen charged at the bags which perfumed the room with the delicious smell of food and coffee, and came up to the board with a stack of files.

- "Holmes?" he said, after exchanging a look with Watson. "I woke up half of the state officials and I have the info you wanted. Jim Moriarty got out two weeks ago. He hasn't checked in at the police station of his conditional zone, like he's supposed to, for two days: I think it is our man."

Lestrade took in a deep breath and ran his hands through his messy grey hair.

- "Thank you", said the doctor, trying hard to stay calm. "Do you have the details of his crime at the time?"

- "The arson? Yeah. I've got three fat folders of evidence gathered by his partner at that time - what was used to sent him behind bars. That guy was over-zealous, there's a heap of wretched paperwork there."

- "I don't understand a thing!" exploded Greg all of a sudden. "What is it, revenge? What's the link with F, with the women? With _us_?! What does the scumbag want after so much time?!"

- "In any case, if it's him, after all these years behaving like a ghost, _why_ now provide us with so many details of his identity?" exclaimed John, banging his fist on the oval table.

- "He wants something. He always tried to send us a message, but we never managed to decipher it…"

The three men turned to Holmes who had got up. He went to the board, worriedly watched by the detectives. His blue eyes shone like those of a wolf.

He let out a cold chuckle. Irony underlined his sharp features.

- "What's it? Do you want us to understand so much you're giving us little mouthfuls? The serial killer who had a reason for his deathly thirst… do you really believe it's going to change anything? Or is it that you're tired?"

Behind him, a courier in yellow jacket stuck his helmet in the meeting room.

- "Excuse me…" he began.

Greg and John rushed to him and dragged him in the corridor before anyone could notice.

- "Er…" stammered the kid, meeting their piercing eyes. "I have…er, mail. For, er… M. Sherlock Holmes."

John held out an authoritarian hand.

- "Give it", he ordered with a rasping voice.

Lestrade was already scribbling on the pad.

- "Where does it come from? Did you see the sender?"

- "Errr… nope. Actually, yeah… but, well… er, it's another courier who gave it to me. We had to meet at the corner of a street, super weird… well, him too, he got it from another courier. This envelop may have gone around the city three times already, y'know…"

The old detective nibbled his lips.

- "He's making fun of us…"

- "Me, I'm not, sir, I'm telling you!"

John dismissed the confused kid with a pat on the nape of his neck.

- "Not you, silly."

He pulled Greg to the end of the corridor where they unsealed the big Kraft envelope.

Their hearts were pounding.

Only two pictures were inside.

The first one, a newspaper clipping, showed a house in ruins, charred walls, and the word "_framed_ " was written on it with big red letters.

The second one, a Polaroid shot, had been taken in a room bathed in sunlight. On the yellow sandy ground, a woman was seated on a chair to which she was tied up.

It was Mary.

Her head was wrapped in green adhesive tape.

Not far from her, on a heap of cardboards and wooden shavings, Connie was lying, with her eyes bandaged.

An other single word was written on the picture: _feeling_.

John and Greg stared at it, petrified.

- "Can I have my mail?" asked a tired voice behind them.

They jumped, startled.

Sherlock Holmes was here.

He took the envelope and both pictures, looked at them for a long time, silently.

He was even paler than usual. A tear slid silently on his cheek, while his fingers touched the photo of his wife and her daughter.

- "They are still alive… they were still alive when he took the picture", tried John awkwardly.

- "That son of…" began Greg.

The ring of a mobile phone cut him off.

The consulting detective slid his hand in the pocket of his jacket and his thumb pressed absently on the call icon before he brought the phone to his ear.

- "Sherlock Holmes", he answered in a toneless voice, still looking at the pictures.

- "Long time no see, Ace", giggled a synthesized voice. "You should have received my second present by now, Mister Monster. What do you think of it?"

* * *

_Next Chapter preview : **Snow**_

Reichenbach

Jim 'F' Moriarty

Breaking Dawn


	21. VI : Snow

The mad enjoyment that shook the man gave way to a great calm.

He had thought about it and lived this moment in advance so much, his body moved on its own.

But he had not expected the sound of despair in the consulting detective's voice, nor the tingling at the end of the fingers whenever they'd brushed against the clothes of the woman.

_Oh, this operation proved itself a thousand times better that if he had imagined all these years…_

He had a happy gasp.

_And this feeling of freedom, like an ecstasy…_

He still saw himself, sweating, terrified, stinking of fear and desire, when he had woken in a startle, twenty years ago, with this obsession.

He was young and attractive enough at the time for the barmaids to call him "baby".

He giggled.

No doubt the detective's wife probably thought herself very clever.

_O-L-D._

He had contemplated the clue with a small ironic smile, before deciding not to wipe it off.

If Sherlock Holmes proved himself rusty, maybe the inscription would speed things up. Two weeks were quite enough time spent in this crazy, modern, far too modern for him now. Everything had to be completed at the latest on Sunday.

He loved the menu on Sunday.

He checked the chairs, the objects. _Perfect_. All left was to stick to the plan.

The little girl stirred on the cardboards. The ribbon in her hair caught the moonlight.

He frowned.

The little girl had brought an additional interest to the hunting, but she weighed at the bottom of his throat, like an unpleasant aftertaste.

_Was it better to kill her now? To take her out of the equation?_

He took a step in her direction.

The little girl woke up.


	22. Reichenbach

Sherlock Holmes closed the hotel room door behind him and leaned against the flap.

He knew that in the corridor, under the yellow neon light, John Watson and Greg Lestrade were in disarray.

He took out his mobile from the inside pocket of his jacket and stared at it for a moment.

_"I'm calling you directly, since we're old acquaintances. Isn't it, Sherlock Holmes? I'll only call you once, though, because you'd be very capable of putting your own telephone on monitoring."_

He looked for the switch, winked when the light came suddenly.

His bed had been redone by the maid, but his suitcase was still opened, with on the lid the shirt he had given up for a warmer sweater, this morning. The toiletry bag was on the desk with the book he had read in the train and his notes for Monday.

He brushed a hand on his face.

_" It's time we meet face to face, isn't it? What do you think? I waited years for this moment. D'you know what? Let's meet at midnight, today."_

An ice-cold fever pearled on his forehead, sticking his black curls to his skin. He wiped it with the back of his hand, walked up to the bed and sat down heavily. He reached out and took on the nightstand the tiny gift-wrapped parcel.

In the corridor, John knocked gently on the door.

- "Holmes? Sherlock, please…"

He blocked away the sound, focused on what he had to do.

_"Midnight - it will be dark. Don't be late, Daddy. Little girls are afraid of darkness, you know that. There's one with me, you see. She's very pretty - and very frightened too, I believe."_

His face tensed and his mouth twitched. He felt his tears burning along his nose. He shut tight his eyes, as to prevent them.

But they did not stop.

He reopened his eyes, bit his lips.

Got up, paced in the bedroom for a few minutes.

_" You know where to find me, right? At the place where I took this photo. You already came there. We did not meet at that time, but you already went there, of course. It will be good. Midnight, don't forget! "_

He stopped when he met his gaze in the mirror above the dresser.

He took in a deep breath.

Put the gift-wrapped parcel under the mirror, next to the alarm clock which indicated 10:37:09 PM and began folding the shirt. He packed up his suitcase, methodically. Placed his notes in the plastic pocket of the lid, the book over his trousers.

Then he sat at the desk and wrote the letter calmly, before folding it and sliding it in one of the hotel envelopes. He slid it with his notes and carefully closed the suitcase.

His eyes went around the bedroom, checking if everything was neat.

_No trace left of the crazy mess that was the genius detective's signature…_

Then he collected the small gift-wrapped parcel. Took a pen and smiled as he added a word on the pink label hung on the big paper knot.

Then he put it in the pocket of his jacket.

He left the suitcase on the bed and left the room.

_"Don't be late. I'm not telling you to come alone. I know the old fox and the puppy will be on your heels. Quickly come to save them, Ace."_

Watson stumbled when he opened the door. He must have had his ear glued to the flap.

Greg Lestrade stared at him for a long time, but did not speak.

- "Let's go", said Sherlock with a sad smile.

- "Where?" asked John.

- "Reichenbach", said the consulting detective. "He's expecting us to come."

His long strides had already took him to the elevator down the corridor. The two men hurried to follow him.

_Reichenbach._

It was there they had met the fake "F", ten years before, the one who had murdered Irene Adler.

It was there that Mary Hudson was – yet again – a prisoner, tied up to a chair, her face wrapped in green adhesive tape.

It was there that Mycroft had told Sherlock Holmes to forget everything.

It was there that the detective, the avenger and the murderer had each made a choice.

The car sped on the empty road, alone in the night.

Sherlock, who had finally learned to drive after Connie's birth, was driving.

Lestrade checked his gun on the passenger seat. At the back, John was on the phone. He hung up and leaned between the front seats.

- "I've got more about Jim Moriarty", he announced hesitantly, after a glance at the blank face of the consulting detective."He left almost all his stuff in jail, told his cellmate to keep them for him until his "return". Most of it is books, English literature."

- "_Jack the ripper_?" asked the cop with irony.

- "Hamlet and co, actually. And American comics, stories of super-heroes."

- With women in babydolls.

John raised an eyebrow to this precision of his former roommate.

- "All his victims were in night sexy shirts", explained Sherlock grimly. "I don't think it was only because they were barmaids who helped their finances with personal customers."

- "This guy's seriously sick…" snorted Lestrade with disgust.

The car slowed down to wait at a traffic light, in an immense crossroads plunged in darkness.

_"Quickly come to save them, Ace."_

The light turned green and the tires squealed on the asphalt when the car took the bend to get on the ring road in the suburb direction.

- "What do we know about the cop, about his relationships with his colleagues, his habits? His statement when he was accused of arson?"

John consulted the PC tablet on his lap. The information found by Inpsector Lee and the rest of the team was downloading.

- "Good education, used to place old English words in his sentences for nothing. This was the laugh of the police station. Parents passed away, no wife nor girlfriend, no kid either."

John darkened. The street lights aligned by the roadside cast pale shades on his face.

- "In fact, he was a rather good cop, apparently", he said almost reluctantly. "Dedicated to his job, involved. He used to go on the graves of the victims who had no family and to leave flowers. Actually, it's his partner, the one who put him in jail, who had bad reputation."

- "_Flowers_ …" murmured Sherlock.

His right hand directed the steering wheel with automatism, while his left thumb rubbed his upper lip.

- "Is there a specific time, a report which says he went off the rails one day or a rumor about him?"

John shook his chin.

- "No, nothing. He was the kind of bloke to shed a tear on a crime scene, not the cop who gets upset and threatens to blow away the culprit's head."

- "I don't get it…" mumbled Lestrade, sinking in his seat.

The car's clock indicated 11:49:07 PM when they took the last bend.

- "Here we are…" whispered John.

The warehouse was still here.

A little more in ruins, perhaps with more trash in the front yard.

Everything was covered with a thick white and sparkling coat.

Holmes got off the car and slowly shut the door. His breath condensed in the night.

- "Oh. It's snowing", said Watson, feeling a flake touching his cheek.

Greg Lestrade took in a deep breath and exchanged a look with the consulting detective.

- "Let's get in", said Sherlock.

He had no weapon, as usual. His arms hung next to the pockets of his long black jacket.

The doors didn't creak when they opened. There was a strong smell of oil. They went in carefully, between machines and shelves, towards the red glow.

The brazier was almost out when they arrived at the other end of the warehouse. A few embers still sparkled at the bottom of the barrel. It was their light they had seen.

Greg and John stood at the pillar where Sherlock Holmes had stopped, a long time ago.

The detective walked the last steps alone.

There were two chairs arranged in mirror on each side the brazier.

_Empty._

On one was a transparent earring, like as a rain drop.

On the other one, a teddy bear.

_Mary._

_Connie._

Sherlock's mobile phone vibrated against his heart.

He took it of his pocket with a hand that shook, had to try twice before unlocking it.

A message.

_Your choice, detective._

_You're either running after your enemy…_

_Or you come to save the victims._

He tried to breathe, only managed to choke. He hear the movement of the two others behind him and raised his hand to stop them.

They froze, their eyes worriedly staring at him.

Sherlock saw himself again – that day. He was dashing after Mycroft, the man he believed to be "F", leaving behind Mary Hudson tied up, choking under her green plastic mask.

_The man who only thought of vengeance, forgetting to save the woman who had forgiven him._

He clenched a fist on his chest.

Something hurt so much inside him, as if the enemy, from afar, tightened his claws on him, pushing them in his flesh, tormenting his spirit until madness.

He checked his watch.

00:05:15

The phone vibrated once again.

_If you are the avenger_

_The earring will guide you to the murderer_

_If you are the detective_

_The teddy bear will lead to what you seek_

He swallowed hard.

His ears were ringing.

_Mary_

_Connie_

He closed his eyes, then put back the phone in the inside pocket of his jacket. He firmed up his voice.

- "Greg. John."

- "Yes?"

The two men got closer immediately.

- "The hunt goes on. The earring is a clue. Surely they're others. I'm counting on you!"

- "Understood!" answered the young doctor, dashing to the chair on which shone the milky drop.

Lestrade scrutinized the Holmes' face.

- "Counting on_ us_?" He specified in an almost inaudible voice. " Where are _you_ going? "

Sherlock's blue eyes dived down to his soul.

- "I'm counting on you", he repeated.

There was no life in his voice.

Then he got around the old police officer and snatched the teddy bear before running back to the gates.

- "Hey! Where is he going?" stammered John who had just turned around. "Hey! Wait for us!"

He tried to catch up with Holmes - then stopped abruptly.

Outside of the warehouse, the engine roared and some snow spurted against the broken windows when the car turned back with violence.

John dropped his arms, bewildered.

- "What… what does that mean? He didn't wait for us… Where is he going?"

Greg had a shiver, as if he had just woken up. He blinked.

Touched his pocket, slid his hand in the woolen fabric.

- "Elsewhere", he said darkly, after a few seconds, holding out his palm.

He was staring at Sherlock's cellphone.


	23. Jim 'F' Moriarty

The man parked his car at the corner of the street. He cut off the engine and stopped the wipers.

It was snowing.

Thick flakes, like crystal flowers, were falling on the city and didn't melt.

Sherlock Holmes picked up the teddy bear sitting on the passenger seat. He held it in front of him and smiled sadly.

- "When everything will be over, you'll be far away", he said. "Try to smile until the end."

He turned over the toy and undid the back zipper.

Besides the indications to go to the meeting place, the hidden pocket contained a woman's necklace almost identical to the one he had offered to his fiancée, seventeen years before.

Except the pendant was not a violin.

It was the letters of the word "faith".

Sherlock closed his fist, then left the car, still holding the teddy bear. He went up the street.

It was now 02:04:58 AM.

His steps cracked in the snow, a lonely muffled noise in the night.

He found the empty building and entered the construction site, following the paper's indications.

_To the top._

_Until you cannot go any farther._

It was so cold, in the building without walls. From a floor to the next, he could see across the street, through the metal pillars and the building materials covered with plastic cloths.

_When did you bring them here? Did you give them something to eat? Are they warm enough? Is Connie still crying? Mary…_

_Oh, please, let them be alive…_

His imagination was a curse in these circumstances.

He quickened his pace, climbed jogging the last steps.

The building was located in a district of towers, looking really small in the shadows of the high buildings hiding in the darkness.

A big defective Ad board bathed the roof with a pale bluish light, like an old television screen.

He looked around to examine the place, to get ready in case they… he knew they wouldn't be able to flee, but…

- "Welcome, Sherlock Holmes", said a voice he did not know.

He turned around slowly.

The man nicknamed "F" was in front of him.

The serial killer he had chase almost all his career, the only one to have escaped him.

The murderer obsessed by women's faces, who always killed on Friday.

The invisible beast who had awakened a desperate young man's hatred, caused the death of his fiancée, and had pulled him into his madness.

The kidnapper who held hostages Mary and Connie.

His enemy.

He looked nothing like the man Sherlock had seen in his mind during the hunt.

It was an old man with round glasses and a woolen vest, looking like a nice grandfather. He touched his hat to greet the consulting detective.

- "Jim Moriarty?" said Holmes almost shyly.

- "Himself. I see you've made the good choice, this time, Ace."

Sherlock threw the necklace at the man's feet.

His heart had begun to boil, slowly, as if it was waking up from a long nightmare.

- "This belongs to you, I believe? Don't put your trash in my daughter's toys."

The murderer chuckled, amused.

He was very calm.

He bent and picked up the necklace, taking his time. For a second, Sherlock wanted to jump to his throat and to bring him down to the ground, to make him spit where was his family.

He did not move.

This was a dangerous game.

They could be here. Or maybe somewhere else. Maybe their lives were risked even more if he didn't play Moriarty's cruel game.

- "Good. I see you learnt to think after all these years", said the killer, putting back in place his glasses, looking pleased. "It'd be a pity if you'd lost everything because of your impatience, Sherlock. Especially when you already made it so far…"

- "Where are they?" growled the detective, gritting his teeth. "Why make me come here alone? Where led the earring?"

Another chuckle.

- "That annoys you, eh? I suppose you put your bloodhounds' tandem on it, right? Don't worry. They will come here. The track is simply longer. They will just be - a little - late. You made the right choice, Sherlock. I am impressed."

Something in the man's tone prevented Holmes from responding with other authoritarian questions.

His eyes searched the roof, tirelessly, while he spoke.

But it was dark, snow was falling, and he could not constantly look away.

- "Choice? What does that mean? There's more behind it, right? What do you want, exactly? What is it we didn't get?"

" F "" took off his glasses and wiped them with his sleeve.

- "Ha. Mist…" he complained.

He stepped aside, dusted the plastic sheet which covered a bunch of metal bars, and sat down on it.

- "_Understand_, huh… Sherlock. When you got on crime scenes, did you not feel it too? _Why is it that no one came to save them? _Didn't this woman have people who cared about her? _Why did she have to wait till she was dead to be taken care of?_ The victims' faces are so sad…"

The former consulting detective nodded with caution.

- "I thought about it all the time", continued Jim Moriarty, looking at him in the eyes. "It was like gangrene. We have no power - us detectives. Reapers of souls, like others are of trash. I wanted to shake awake the living. Tell them to take care about their friends before it's too late. I wanted to change the expression on the victims' faces, to see gratitude, life."

_Feeling._

Sherlock felt his lips twitch and tried hard not to show his usual sardonic expression.

- "This is why you killed them?"

The old man shook his chin.

- "You still don't understand. I didn't kill the first one. I let her jump through the window to escape, then I undid the gauze bandages on her face…"

- Molly Hooper. "Don't worry, ma'am, you'll be fine, now. I'm with the police", quoted Sherlock with irony. "The poor girl ended insane."

Moriarty stared at him and his icy look pierced the detective.

- "Who's fault? I might have been a somewhat monster for a police officer, but you were much worse. You used her as a bait."

_Freak._

The murderer got up and took a few steps on the roof covered with snow. There were no other footprints than their owns. Mary and Connie had been taken away before the snow began to fall or they had never been there.

Sherlock gritted his teeth.

- "You didn't kill this one, but the others, yes! The girl who sent money to her parents, the young sister who thought you were the perfect boyfriend and all these women of whom you sent us the portraits? Where are their bodies? Who were they?"

- "Don't you see the irony, Sherlock? The way this world goes? Nobody cared about them. Barmaids, screwed students… kids who should have never been left alone, that should have been given advice, protection. Even the avenger, Mycroft, the one who killed your fiancée… you know it, deep down your heart, Sherlock, isn't it? Where was he, all this time, when she was alive? Isn't it his guilt that drove him nuts - not the need to make you understand what the victims' family felt? Why is it that _no one_ was able to tell you what I looked like, Sherlock? I was always with them. They loved me."

_Friend._

The detective swallowed. He felt nauseous. Was it because of the cold? Consequences of these last two days? The confidences made on a quiet, almost plaintive tone? He closed his fists, hoping waking up his numb fingers would help him to remain focused.

- "What about your partner? Did he realize it? Is this why he framed you with the fire? Because he had no proof against you for the murders?"

A burst of sincere laughter escaped the murderer's lips.

- "Oh no, not at all! The moron was far too selfish and too bad a cop to discover that - or even to imagine it! It's him who set the house on fire. An accident. He was drunk like a dog, most of the time. I could have been able to notice it and to stop the fire, if I had been on patrol with him… but it was Friday night. I had an appointment elsewhere."

Sherlock shivered, feeling even more sick.

- "He couldn't do better than accuse you and provide false evidence?"

- "My alibi was an attractive orphan in her twenties, to whom fear gave an even prettier smile. I couldn't really say that. My partner didn't like me too much, y'know. To save his arse, he had me arrested."

_Framed._

The old man got closer and Sherlock stiffened.

- "I was very surprised to hear I had _struck again_, once in prison. The crazy kid who imitated me had more luck than I… Mycroft. He almost watched what I wanted to see…"

The silver necklace dangled in the white darkness of the roof.

- "Somebody who was within an inch of saving her. A true feeling. _Faith_. Irene Adler held on until the last minute, because she thought you were going to save her, right? To the point of pretending she was already dead."

The necklace reflected in his round glasses, ethereal.

- "I've been watching you all these years, Sherlock Holmes. The detective. The freak. The professor. We're like the two faces of a coin, don't you think so? You, who were known to be cruel, but who have never killed. And I, who was called a softie, and who took with my own hands the last breath of all these women."

Sherlock did not answer.

"F" pulled out his watch and looked at it.

- "Nearly four in the morning. It'll be dawn soon", he said. "Are you ready, Sherlock Holmes? I want to see this woman's face when you undo the adhesive tape strips. When she sees you came to save her."

- "And then you will let us go? Just like this?"

A small smile folded the corner of Jim Moriarty's mouth.

- "No, of course. Someone must die, Sherlock, you know that."


	24. Breaking Dawn

A pink and golden light drilled the sky, from afar, between the high buildings.

The thick night slowly opened up like the objective of a camera, dyed with indigo and purple.

It was dawn.

Snow had stopped falling.

Sherlock Holmes was standing at the edge of the roof.

In front of him, Moriarty had removed the cover which had kept hidden Mary and Connie, both asleep and tied up to their chairs. He finished with the second shot, then got up and smiled to the detective.

- "They'll wake up in a minute", he said. "It's time. You can come to them."

Frozen snow made a crisp sound under his knees, when Sherlock dropped next to Mary to undo the ropes bruising the young woman's arms and ankles. Connie's head and long black curls were still resting on her chest, but when he removed the horrible headband and the ropes, she did not seem wounded.

- Mary... Mary... Mary...

His fingers were numb and not enough fast to undo the adhesive tape. He looked around him for something. He had nothing, not even a knife.

He tore another strip of green plastic, feverishly.

- "Mary, it's me… can you hear me? I'm here! I'm here…"

Her cheek was warm.

He tore away the last piece of tape, took his wife's face in his hands.

- "Mary…"

She was so pale. He kissed her forehead, her nose, her lips.

- "Mary, wake up! It's over… it's over, I promise…"

Tears streamed down his face, mist blinded his eyes. He pushed away her tangled hair, smoothed the tracks of tears and the red marks left by the glue.

- "Mary… Mary…"

His heart was breaking.

Behind him, the serial killer watched the scene silently. The smoke of his cigarette rose in the translucent light of the dawn.

- "Sherlock…"

She shuddered.

Her eyelids fluttered and her lost eyes settled with hesitation on him.

- "Mary!"

She didn't seem to realize for a moment, then the shape of a fragile smile slowly made its way through her tears and her grimace of fear and pain.

He kissed her, then hugged her tight - very tight.

- "It's over, my love… nightmare's over…"

She grabbed his jacket and sobbed without restraint.

There was a movement next to them. Almost imperceptible.

They turned together. Sherlock reached out to the little girl who had woken up and picked her from the chair. Mary rested her head on her husband's shoulder, but her arm came to draw the child to them from the other side.

- "Daddy?" said Connie, her eyes still blurred with sleep.

- "I'm here", he answered quietly.

She snuggled up between them, in the hollow of their arms, in the warmth of her father's coat.

- "It's mowning?"

Sherlock nodded.

- "Yes, sweetie."

- "It snowed a lot", whispered Mary, sniffing in spite of her smile.

And for a moment, while the gold of dawn rose between the high buildings, the world was only peace.

Then the old man with glasses cleared his throat behind them.

- "It's almost time, Sherlock Holmes", he said.

The former consulting detective closed his eyes - maybe to avoid Mary's surprised look, or perhaps to keep his voice under control - then let go of his two women. He took off his black coat and got something from the pocket before putting it carefully on Mary's shoulders.

-What ...w-w-what's hap-p-pening? She choked .

He smiled, but did not answer.

- "Let's get to it", said the murderer, throwing away his cigarette butt and crushing it under his heel.

Sherlock took the hand of the little girl curled up against Mary.

- "Do you remember I promised to bring back a surprise from Seoul?"

She nodded.

-"Ta-dam…" whispered Sherlock, handing her the small gift wrapped with a pink ribbon."Open it."

She tore off the paper, opened the glass box.

- "Oohh."

- "This is a genuine detective whistle, you know", said Sherlock. 'When you blow this side, ultra-sounds come out. Nobody else can hear, but your police dog. And on this side, you can warn people or call or if there's any danger."

Connie smiled.

Her little face was smeared with smoke and there was tape still tangled in her hair, but her eyes twinkled with innocent joy, as only a child can do in the midst of a storm.

- "Thank you, Daddy!"

He leaned forward, stroked her cheek and kissed her forehead.

- "You be a nice girl, Connie, okay?"

She nodded vigorously, then seemed to realize the absurdity of the sentence - the absurdity of the scene.

- "Where are you going?" begged Mary.

Sherlock Holmes stretched out his arms.

- "Come. Come, you two."

They threw themselves into his arms, together, hugged him as tight as they could. Then he pushed them away gently. Lifted an amber lock that hid Mary's eyes, affectionately pinched Connie's nose.

- "Greg and John will be here soon", he said. "Don't be afraid."

He got up.

Mary hung onto him, clinging to his legs.

- "No-o-o ... no ... no ... no-o-o ..."

- "Mum-m-my?" stammered the little girl, frightened.

Sherlock unlocked his wife's hands gently but firmly. He leaned over and whispered in her ear.

- "Please, don't let her see this... it's the only way, Mary. I beg you ... Look at me, Mary. Please. Look at me until the end."

She sank back into the snow, distraught.

- "Connie. Hold your mummy's hand, okay? And don't be afraid."

- "Yes, Daddy."

The little girl's chin trembled, but she looked at her father without crying. He smiled proudly.

- "That's my Detective Connie Holmes."

Then he walked over to the old man waiting at the edge of the roof and held out his wrists.

- "They won't be here in time, if that's what you're hoping for", said the serial killer, raising a disapproving eyebrow.

- "I know", Sherlock said quietly.

The old man tied his arms with the rope.

- "That's what you want, isn't it?"

The consulting detective nodded.

- "Yes. But you keep your promise."

- "I will", Jim Moriarty said with satisfaction.

He got out of the pocket of his coat a large black cloth.

Mary soughed behind them. They heard Connie whispering comforting words to her.

- "Are you cold, Mummy?"

The serial killer chuckled.

- "She's so cute! Maybe if I had had a child, I would have found another way, me too..."

- "Guilt never goes away", murmured Sherlock.

He looked over the old man's shoulder.

_His eyes in the eyes of Mary._

_Forever._

His eyes in the eyes of the woman who had looked at him when he was still a monster.

His eyes in the eyes of the woman who loved him, him who could not forgive himself.

The light arising between the high buildings filled the skies with bright purple, blinding and pure.

- "Farewell, Sherlock Holmes", said Jim Moriarty.

And he began to wrap the black cloth around the head of the detective, slowly, as if he wrapped it in a shroud.

_His eyes in the eyes of Mary._

_Forever._

Tears streamed down Mary's face, along her nose, in her mouth, tirelessly.

- "Mummy? Mummy, what..."

Connie turned around and uttered a cry of fright. She tried to get up and run to her father, but her mother grabbed her and trapped in her arms the screaming little girl.

- "Daddy! Daddy! DADDY! Stop! Stop, please! Stop! Daaaaddy!"

Sherlock did not move.

His own tears tinged the shroud that rose slowly around his face.

_Connie..._

_I'm so sorry..._

_Daddy will always be with you, sweetie..._

The black ribbon hid the smile he gave to the desperate little girl who kept trying to free herself from the arms of her mother who was frozen like a statue.

_His eyes in the eyes of Mary._

_Forever._

Suddenly, Connie stopped struggling. She opened her chubby fist and for a second considered what was inside.

The black cloth blinded Sherlock Holmes, like a veil at first, then the second time thicker.

Fear rose in him like a waterfall, fusing, burning inside his chest, consuming his heart, his organs, his insides.

_Not fear of death, no._

_But fear of not seeing them again._

_Fear of leaving them._

_Mary._

_Connie._

It was at this moment he heard it.

_The whistle._

The whistle kept blowing over and over again, like a military salute, like a last call of honor.

Then there was no more fear.

He felt the warm light of dawn bath his shoulders, like if it tore away the darkness.

For a moment, it was as if he saw them before him.

_John Watson with all his friendship on his shy face._

_Greg Lestrade, his hands in his pockets and with a happy grin._

_The beautiful Mary Hudson who was smiling gently._

_And Connie, dancing in the light, full of life and joy._

Then the shot burnt in his chest and the sound of the whistle disappeared.

* * *

_Last Chapter Preview : **Puddles**_

A silver whistle

Lesson from the past

Friday Rain


	25. VII : Puddles

Greg Lestrade tried answering the question for the rest of his life.

_Did Sherlock know exactly what was going to happen ?_

_What was said by the two enemies during the hours before dawn?_

_What was inside the teddy bear ?_

It was a like a treasure hunt, indeed.

Under the earring chair was stuck the picture of a crime scene surrounded by yellow barrier tape. At the river banks where they had found Rachel Doyle was a plastic box with a post-it inside, on which was written an address. At this address, they found GPS coordinates. At the location, a map with a street name underlined.

In the street, Holmes' car.

John found it just a few minutes before the squad reached the last clue, tracing the sender of the messages found in the detective's cell phone.

Suddenly, for some unknown reason, "F"'s mobile had been switched on.

By the time they drove like crazy to the location, the night had ended and dawn began to break in the night sky, piercing the purple clouds with a golden arrow.

John Watson, the inspector Lee and Greg Lestrade arrived first and didn't wait. They climbed the stairs four at a time, hands clutched on their weapons, panting.

They were on the sixth floor when they heard the gun shot.


	26. A silver whistle

The car passed under the trees, followed the curve of the pink driveway, then parked in front of the police academy entrance stairs.

The girl who opened the passenger side door carried a pile of books with thousands of post-it on top of which was a PC tablet threatening to fall over. A leather satchel beat her thighs. She wore a knitted beret and a giant crochet sweater on worn out jeans.

She stumbled when one of her boots heels hit the curb, executed some panicked steps with the o-o-oh of an amateur tightrope artist, then resumed her balance.

- "Well done", laughed the man who was at the wheel, watching the performance through the window.

He wore sunglasses that didn't hide his gentle look and his hair was gray, cut military fashion.

- "Don't you think a backpack would be a better option?"

The girl pouted, then smiled mischievously over her stack of books while removing the PC tablet and stuffing it loosely in her satchel.

- "I'm doing fine."

- "Looks like me at the same age, though..." the man muttered, amused.

She wasn't listening, busy rummaging through the narrow pockets of her jeans. A silver whistle dangled from her long chain necklace. A long black raven loop slipped on her chin. She blew absently to get rid of it.

- "Thanks for the drive", she began, "I… ha! I forgot my mobile at home!"

- "Smart. It's these chemicals you put on your head, I'm sure. What's with the blue forelock? _Who_ did you believe? This is _not_ the latest fashion. Why, next week, you'll be blonde with a carrot fringe?"

- "_Dad _! You're making fun of me! she said, pulling a face. "How would you know fashion, anyway? I do what I want with my hair!"

- "Sorry", chuckled the man. "Am I picking you up after class, tonight?"

- "No, actually. I'm going to Ashley's, we'll study old files."

- "Where did she get them?"

- "Her mother brought them back from the prosecutors' office. In short, if Mum's looking for me when, tell her to call there. I'll spend the night."

The man's eyes narrowed.

- "There won't be _boys_ implied this night study, I hope…?"

- "Dad!"

- "Okay, okay, understood. See you tomorrow."

She waved through the window, then straightened the strap of her bag and attacked the steps, the stack of books up to her chin.

He watched her walk away with love, amazed once again at her joyful and inexhaustible energy.

She inherited from her mother her cute mouth and round nose. From her father, she got the ethereal blue eyes and the dark curls.

From the two of them, a stubborn and willful character, a brilliant mind and a generous heart.

A girl caught up with her and took some of the books. They passed under the porch and disappeared inside the building.

- "Have a good day, princess", said the man alone at the wheel.

He switched on the engine and the car went around the esplanade under the bright sun.

At the entrance, the guards greeted him with respect while the barrier was raised.

- "Were you giving a lecture today?" asked the one who was on the driver's side, while the other watched the mechanism.

The man smiled. His finger with a big silver ring drummed absently on the wheel.

- "No, I just gave a lift to school to my daughter. These girls! She forgot her cellphone..."

- "Too bad we can't pin up a spy device on the collar of their jacket, at this age", joked the closest guard with a somewhat compassionate look.

- "Oh, she _is_ carrying one around", said the man at the wheel. "It's just that her mother of her friend will send us the bill for the cell phone. And it's going to hurt."

The guard raised a surprised eyebrow, but did not dare add anything.

- "Have a good day", said the man when the passage was cleared.

- "Have a good day, doctor Watson!" replied the two guards, saluting together, before exchanging a puzzled look.

The car stopped to give a look at the road before engaging on it, then disappeared in a roar of the engine.


	27. Lesson from the past

The teacher switched off the room lights and turned on the projector. He cleared his throat.

- "This semester, we will focus on the profile of a serial killer who made the headlines, terrified the masses and gave a hard time to our ranks almost for almost twenty years. The media called him "F", but the police filed him under the letter "M"."

- "_Twenty years_! Seriously? What the heck was the police doin', then?"

- "What's with the odd code name?"

- "Jim Moriarty, aka "F" was an extremely complicated case, you see," went on the professor, ignoring the murmur running through the amphitheater. "There's a detective who hunted him for most of his career, whose name you might recognize because he wrote most of the articles of your criminal profiling textbook."

He picked up the remote and switched to a new picture.

It showed a river banks, immersed in thick fog - forensics doing their job within the boundaries of the yellow barrier tape, and what would be the corpse of a woman in a red nightshirt, her head wrapped in a trash bag.

The professor led the red pointer to a young man in long black coat who was examining the body, a cell phone in his hand. His head was tilted aside. He had a very pale skin, blue mysterious eyes and a wry grin that showed wolf teeth.

- "_Who_ is Mr. Super Sexy?" whispered girls in the fifth row.

- "Sherlock Holmes, also called the "freak", said the professor, raising eyebrows at the nickname. "A consultant for the police. He was the specialist of "F "and also the one who allowed his arrest. I was part of the forces involved at the time, and I can assure you he was no joke. Nothing to do with a character from a novel."

He opened other computer windows, allowing the students to whisper comments as different crime scenes appeared on screen, then stopped on a new picture.

_Mr. Super Sexy_ was still wearing a long black coat with a high collar, but he was older - maybe thirty-five years old - and his blue eyes were much more sad.

- "What interests us about him, is how he profiled the criminal", continued the professor.

Someone raised a hand in the seats on the right.

- "Are you going to invite him for a lecture ?"

The professor shook his head.

- "No. The detective paid with his life the arrest of 'F', sixteen years ago."

There was a "oh" of collective disappointment, quickly calmed by a warning glance of the teacher.

- "If you want to know more about it, go to the Police National Archives, and ask to see the file of the kidnapping of Connie Holmes."

Other wondering whispers followed.

- "_Who_ was that?"

- "Meeting the legend himself would have been so much more exciting than studying the case on screen..." whispered a guy in the top row.

- "You bet! It'd be a hundred times better than having to go poking around the dusty archives!"

- "Here are pictures of the places where victims imputed to F were found", said the professor changing pictures and documents using the remote control. "The serial killer was named like this because he used to murder women – _female_ - and he did so on _Friday_. He was a face fetishist.

- "Yet another word also starting with an -f-", added someone in the front row.

- "As you can see, the murderer almost always leaves the body in heavy traffic areas. Any idea what this could mean?"

- "He's making fun of the police? He wants to highlight their incompetence to prevent a recurrence of the crime?" suggested a girl in the third row.

- "He's keeping them away from the place where the murder actually took place while creating a maximum of confusion in the media, and thus slow down the investigation", proposed a student from the seats on the left.

The professor nodded.

- "Another question, before we read the first analysis written by Sherlock Holmes, after they established it were serial murders."

The students focused.

- "The fifteen women - as well as three men and two male children - who were murdered by 'F' were blindfolded at the time of their death. What does this tell you about the personality of the criminal?"

- "Fifteen, five… -f- again ! Whaah, this guy was a complete freak", whispered two guys from the tenth row.

A girl raised her hand in the second row.

- "Maybe it's a religious symbol? For exam..."

- "Rather it's fear of seeing death in the victim's eyes!" cut in a student behind her.

- "Or to make sure they won't recognize him if they escape!" interjected an other one.

- "Blindfolded when they _died_" : _what_ are you not getting in the question?" laughed his neighbor.

The teacher licked his lips. He looked for the remote.

- "We..." he began.

- "Please, Professor Lee?"

All heads turned in the direction of the voice.

The girl with the silver whistle necklace was getting up in the middle of the amphitheater.

- "He blindfolded them because it was at this precise moment they realized they had been abandoned and he wanted that last reproachful look to go to the right person, not to him."

There was a moment of stunned silence.

- Jim Moriarty was looking for a _feeling_ that could guarantee a true _freedom_."

The teacher frowned. He looked through the students list of placed on his desk.

- "Perfect answer. So perfect that I wonder where you got this idea, miss...?"

- "Watson", said the girl. "I know it's true because I was there the day 'F' explained why he killed . The day he was arrested."

The professor chuckled in the stunned silence.

- "How old where you at that time – five, six? Don't make me laugh. And the confessions of Moriarty were never broadcasted on television or in the newspapers, how could you have listen to them?"

- "Sit down, Connie..." begged the friend sitting next to her, her face red like a tomato.

The girl kept staring at the teacher. The light of the projector passed over her like a halo, cutting her silhouette shadow on the screen on which Sherlock Holmes paced on the misty river banks.

- "I was four. It was a week after my birthday. Each word was engraved in my memory", she replied in a hard voice. "Every expression of his disgusting face. That's why I 'm here today, because I want to learn all about what he did, who he was - why did he have no choice but to kill my father on that day."

The professor squinted.

- "You're Sherlock Holmes' daughter?"

His hand fumbled for the remote and his thumb slid the computer windows to a folder called 'Finale'.

A profound silence had filled the amphitheater.

The first picture which opened on the screen showed a little girl with long and messy dark curls, wearing torn tights. Her pink dress with a strawberry-shaped button on the front was covered with dust and her little face smeared with tears and smoke, twisted by inconsolable grief. There were pieces of green adhesive tape tangled in her hair. She was in the arms of a young man who was crying too, his hand with a large silver ring at the forefinger holding a little black shoe.

Behind them was a stretcher covered with a cloth and a man with a gray quiff, looking desperate, who hugged a woman wrapped in a blanket.

Her face was cuddled in something that looked like a black coat.

A little aside, two police officers were taking away an old man, handcuffed, his round glasses on his nose, who was wearing a woolen vest. He was looking at the woman with the eyes of a gentle grandfather.

Yellow tape and green plastic bits were all over the asphalt splashed with blood and snow.


	28. Friday Rain

On Friday, John Watson always knew where he would find his wife.

He parked the car in the parking lot next to the quiet English cemetery, then took the paved trail across the lawn. He looked up from the bottom of the hill, his eyes blinking because of the sun.

She was up there, standing in front of the two graves, under the pale blue sky. He could see her through the branches of a tree.

He put his hands in his pockets and slowly climbed the old stairs.

She guessed he was coming more than she heard him, turned toward him as he approached and smiled.

Her smile was the most beautiful thing in the world, even though her eyes were filled with tears.

- "John."

- "I'm here, Mary", he replied, leaning over to kiss her cheek.

On Friday, time was suspended, back sixteen years before.

- "Connie isn't answering her cell phone. I don't want to already ask for her location, but..."

He put his arm around her shoulders, smiled back at her.

- "She forgot her mobile at home, don't worry. She's sleeping over at her friend Ashley's, tonight. They're planning to study a big stack of old files!"

- "Oh."

She nodded, snuggled against him. He held out his hand, touched the cold and gritty stone in front of them, nodded to the other grave.

- "Holmes, Greg... here we are", he greeted.

- "Are you doing fine, you two?" Mary added softly. "I hope you're not arguing."

- "Oh, I'm sure they are! Only the two of them could find a way to get in competition - even over there!"

Mary shook her chin with a chuckle. Her transparent earrings sparkled, catching the sunlight.

John gave himself an internal pat on the shoulder. He loved when she managed to laugh, even when she was contemplating the faces of those they had lost.

Greg Lestrade had left a few years after Sherlock Holmes' death. The old detective had finally met a fatal knife during a raid in the old districts of London. His luck had left him - or perhaps had he simply decided to let it go.

He had never recovered from what had happened that night.

Until his last day, he came to visit Sherlock's grave, asking him the same questions endlessly.

He no longer joked. Never looked at Mary in the eyes.

John and he had moved in with Mary and Connie after the kidnapping. The house was big – too big with the study nobody used anymore. Lestrade had asked for his retirement and only remained a consultant. He walked Connie to school, softly telling her about her father.

The little girl listened, tilting her head aside, her chubby hand held by her old friend. She wore a necklace with the silver whistle, whose sound still pierced the ears of the detective and the doctor. Her black curls had turned white during the night after the murder and Mary dyed them with the colors the child liked.

The young woman made tea - the same far too sweet tea Sherlock had never managed to prepare up to her taste - and offered it to the old detective when he came back from the walk. Connie and he shared the same cup after school and, sometimes, the shadow of a smile passed on Lestrade's moon face.

The day he received the dreadful call from London, John sat on the porch of the house and he wept uncontrollably, for almost an hour straight. His breath puffed out clear little clouds. In the garden, Connie was building a snowman, not knowing her best friend was gone for ever. She was wearing a red scarf that stood out in this all-white world.

After Greg's death, Mary had agreed to marry John.

It hadn't been easy and often, afterwards, she would wonder if she had been right, if Sherlock would have really approved.

But John never doubted of what he was doing.

The unconscious crush of the doctor had turned over the years into a deep and abiding love.

If Sherlock had lived, John Watson might have met and married someone else. But with mourning came an acute, pressing, sense of responsibility.

_Someone had to protect Mary._

_Someone had to be Connie's father._

He did not talk it through with Lestrade, but the old policeman guessed it on his own. One day he settled in a chair in front of the young man, and cleared his throat.

- "Are you sure of yourself?" he muttered after a while.

John did not understand right away.

Greg smoothed his gray quiff, embarrassed.

- "He'd be grateful", he ended up mumbling, very low. "Perhaps he'd give you his Disgruntled Genius Eyebrow, but I think he'd be relieved deep inside."

John's father had died a few years before, and Mary's adoptive family did not come to the wedding, so these words were for the doctor the only blessing he received.

It was enough.

Mary pulled the picture out of her bag . The corners of it were worn out.

- "Greg... are you not getting bored up there? Do you have a lot of high school girls in mini-skirts to monitor?"

Mary gave him a nudge.

They could almost hear the old detective grumbling with humor.

John laughed.

- "Holmes, I will soon receive a Forensics' Prize. Aren't you proud of me?"

If he'd been there, Sherlock would surely have raised an eyebrow without answering.

- Ah! Is it so hard to say "congratulations"? Mary, you tell him!

On the picture, the former consulting detective was half snorting, half smiling, his head tilted aside, his arms crossed over his long black coat. Greg Lestrade had his hands in his pockets and the wind brushed back his gray quiff. His eyes were narrowing with a wry grin. Between them, Mary was waving with a giggle, her amber hair tousled by the breeze.

The picture had been taken shortly before Connie's birth, on the day they had done a pilgrimage to the _221b Baker Street_. On the porch flooded with light, John had caught the image of those who were like family to him.

Mary never parted from the photo.

Watson walked to the other grave and touched the rounded top.

- "Greg… Connie's still missing your walks together… she jogs along the same route, you know. When she comes back, she eats noodles with a beer and she sneers just like you, sometimes. I don't have much hope we can marry her, at this rate…

He came back and his fingers slid over the asperities of the magnifying glass engraved in stone.

-"Sherlock… your daughter is the top of her class already. Her room looks like a police HQ, with files everywhere and stuff clipped on threats from a wall to another. She'll quickly become a legend when she graduates from the academy and enters the field. I'm a bit jealous…

He laughed softly. Then his eyes met Mary's gaze and he drew her near him, his fingers joining hers on the old picture.

- "You know… he had the same smile, that day, on that building top…" she whispered. "Such a peaceful smile. Finally."

John nodded.

- "I know."

That time when he was just a kid seemed so far away ... The day he thought his life had ended in the back alley, and where the shadow of Sherlock Holmes had suddenly showed up in the halo of the lamppost. The first meeting with Lestrade and these years when he followed the police officer around, protesting and arguing and learning – all the hours spent in _Baker Street_, striving to prove his worth, expecting a compliment from the consulting detective – that time he learnt how happy you were when having a goal.

That night when Mary Hudson, soaked and exhausted, had knocked on the door of _221b Baker Street_ and fainted in his arms.

Time had passed and yet the night they heard the whistle still seemed so close...

Silence reigned in the cemetery, not even disturbed by the wind.

- "Come…", Mary murmured after awhile.

And he awoke from the dream his memories were made of.

They left through the small gate at the back of the cemetery, to go to the coffee shop across the street like they always did.

They were passing under the arch, when rain began to fall like a curtain of pearls. Water and sun mingled, sparkling on them, fizzling on the road.

- "Ah, it's autumn again", grinned John.

Mary squinted, her hands in protection over her forehead.

- "Yes! It's beautiful!"

She was laughing.

They ran across the street and took shelter at the entrance of the coffee shop.

The rain was gone as quickly as it had come, leaving a new shine on everything it had touched.

- "I wonder if it's raining like this too, where they are..." the doctor said thoughtfully, his chin buried in the high collar of his back coat.

Mary Hudson did not answer, but she put her hand in John Watson's hand.

The sky was blue, high above them. A raindrop glistened on the edge of a roof, like a bright tear.


End file.
